Corb indi (Corvus splendens)
Si
el primer que veus només entrar en un país com Israel són dos
corbs negres, assegura't de deixar per escrit les teves últimes
voluntats.
House crow
Photographers
would say this is a suggestive picture. Birdwatchers would say this
picture is a piece of shit. I say I love my pictures more than I love my
children -this is something that people who have no pictures cannot
understand.
Aligot
vesper oriental (Pernis ptilorhynchus)
Molt
a prop del lloc fronterer de l'anterior fotografia hi havia un petit
bosc de palmeres. Uns birdwatchers ens (en aquest viatge l'expedició
estava formada per cinc catalans, una aragonesa i una basca) van dir
que cada dia a les nou en punt del matí en sortia un aligot vesper
oriental. L'endemà vam anar-hi i, efectivament, amb puntualitat
anglesa (no oblidem que Israel va ser britànic fins el 1948, i,
vulguis o no, en algunes coses s'ha de notar) va sorgir del palmerar
i ens va venir a desitjar un bon dia.
Oriental honey-buzzard
The
legend goes that when Immanuel Kant left his home, every day at the
same time, people set their watches on time. Something similar can be
said about this very buzzard: when it leaves its little palm grove
every morning at 9 o'clock, birdwatchers calibrate their telescopes,
check the settings on their cameras and adjust their binoculars.
Thanks, honey.
Alció garser (Ceryle rudis)
Què
tenen en comú els alcions garsers i els enxanetes? The answer, my
friend, is blowing in their wings. Que tots dos fan l'aleta. En el
cas dels ocells fer l'aleta vol dir quedar-se parat a l'aire amb el
cap immòbil i movent només les ales (l'alció ho fa per buscar
peixos). En el cas dels enxanetes és el moviment d'aixecar la mà
quan arriben a dalt del castell per donar-lo per carregat.
Pied kingfisher
To
come across these birds is always very welcome because they hover
very often (much more than the European kingfisher) so they are
relatively easy to photograph in such an awesome behaviour.
Íbex de Núbia (Capra nubiana)
D'íbexs
en vam veure uns 35, i pujaven i baixaven tota l'estona.
Nubian ibex
How
cool these hoofed & horned beasts were! And the image is even
cooler if you know that the waters you see in the background are
those of the Dead Sea (which, by the way, is not a sea, and is indeed
very alive as it is full of tourists). If you're wondering whether I
took a bath in the Dead Sea the answer is yes -fifty-two years after
my own father did-, but I won't post a picture of it because this
blog is meant to show serious creatures only.
Estornell de Tristram (Onychognathus tristramii)
El
nom d'aquest ocell està dedicat als consellers d'economia de la
Generalitat que van a Madrid a negociar el traspàs d'un trist tram
de l'IRPF. El color de l'ocell ens indica les possibilitats que
tenen.
Tristram's starling
These
birds were very confident. In a place where we (the expeditionaries
were five Catalan blokes, an Aragonese woman and a Basque woman) left
our van (yes, we travelled all around Israel in a rented van. If the
guys who rented it had known the places we would drag the
van through, surely they would have pretended the business was on holiday)
they ate some crumbs at barely one
foot
from us.
Còlit
núbic (Oenanthe lugens)
De
còlits, en aquest viatge, en vaig bimbar tres: el tuareg, el
cuanegre i aquest. A més a més també vam veure molts còlits
grisos i alguns companys van veure el còlit pàl·lid, que a mi,
quina ràbia, se'm va escapar. És a dir, vam veure còlits per un
tubo. I concretament aquest de la foto tenia el niu en un tubo. Veieu
que du menjar al bec? El portava a dins d'una canonada d'on entrava i
sortia, i on, suposem, hi tenia els seus fillets. Aquesta foto la
vaig fer des de dins de la furgoneta (efectivament, vam recórrer el
país en una furgo llogada. L'estat en què la vam retornar potser
farà entrar en fallida el rent-a-car de l'aeroport de Tel Aviv), que
moltes vegades ens va fer d'amagatall mòbil.
Mourning wheatear
I
guess this wheatear wasn't mourning at all, just the opposite: it was
full of joy because it had recently had offspring! Can you see it
has food on its beak? It was going in and out of a pipe on a sidewalk
where we suppose it had its nest and was feeding its children. How
cute.
Picot
garser siríac (Dendrocopos syriacus)
Aquesta
és l'única espècie i l'únic individu de picot que vam veure en
tot el viatge (sense comptar el colltort, que el vam veure uns quants
cops), cosa que pot sorprendre si tenim en compte que els piciformes
són el segon ordre d'ocells amb més espècies, després dels
passeriformes, del món.
Syrian woodpecker
We
saw this woodpecker while we were eating in a picnic area. Was it a
coincidence? No: we had lunch there because our guide knew there was
a Syrian woodpecker in that place. And once we were there, he played
its call in his mobile phone. So no coincidences: it all went
according to plan. Like clockwork. Like the drumming of a woodpecker.
Abellerol maragda oriental (Merops orientalis)
Aquest
abellerol el vam veure súper bé. Primer estava en un cable. Des del
cable va sortir volant i va caçar un insecte. Va tornar al cable i
se'l va fotre. Després va anar a aquest arbust que veieu i va
estar-s'hi uns quants minuts. I aleshores va venir un guarda i ens
van fotre fora: ens havíem ficat en una finca privada. Menys mal que
la finca no era un assentament ultraortodox i que el guarda no era un
colon armat.
Green bee-eater
While
we were watching this bee-eater a guard came to expel us from there,
because we had entered private land without fully realizing. But, as
he saw us so focused and so fascinated by the bee-eater, he became
interested also, and he took a good look at the bee-eater with the
binoculars somebody lent him. Birdwatching is contagious.
Capsigrany
emmascarat (Lanius nubicus)
Quatre
dels animals que vam veure es diuen núbic/a/us o de Núbia, una
paraula que em sonava vagament i de la qual no tenia gens clar el
significat. Fem una mica de cultura: Núbia és la regió del sud
d'Egipte i el nord del Sudan. Molt bé. A més a més de l'íbex, el
còlit i aquest capsigrany també vam veure l'enganyapastors de
Núbia, però no vaig tenir temps de fer-ne cap foto, van ser dues
observacions de pocs segons cada una. Una llàstima. De capsigranys
emmascarats, en canvi, en vam veure una dotzena i aquest es va deixar
fotografiar bé.
Masked shrike
Shrikes
have gore names in Catalan. One of them is called botxí, which means
executioner and it comes from the same root as the English word
butcher. Another shrike is called escorxador, which means
slaughterer. These names come from the behaviour of shrikes, who
impale little animals they catch in prickly bushes. This one, though,
is called capsigrany, which means stupid. What names, huh? I prefer
something neutral like shrike.
Gavina
ullblanca (Ichthyaetus leucophthalmus)
Era
evident que estant a Terra Santa en plena Setmana Santa, en un mar tan
bíblic com el Mar Roig i tenint la sacra península del Sinaí al
fons, havíem de presenciar algun miracle. Doncs aquí ho teniu: una
leucophthalmus caminant per sobre les aigües! Al·leluia!
Ni
Nostradamus hagués endevinat que en la seva Segona Vinguda el
Redemptor prendria la forma d'un caradriforme!
White-eyed gull
While we were watching this gull (a sailor gull, Leonard Cohen would sing, as it walks upon the water! How the fuck it does it I still don't know. I swam there and it wasn't shallow) and a great crested tern, a group of schoolchildren, I'd say about ten or eleven years old, all wearing binoculars, came to the beach. I asked the teacher and he told me that they were having a birdwatching class! Moved as I was to have met a school that has birdwatching as a subject, a disturbing image blew up all the beauty of the moment: the teacher was wearing a gun in his belt! Yes, a real one, and not particularly concealed. God! -or should I say Yahweh- welcome to the Middle East!!
