Close encounters of the Scorpion kind & nightjar 19 May

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Friday evening shortly before 8 p.m. we decided to take a walk to see if we could catch the evening's aerial insect- eating birds. We were a little too late for the bee-eaters but we did find a number of Swifts - Apus apus, screaming like banshees over the valley.

A little later it when it was almost dark, husband noticed a black scorpion with brown legs, about a man's hand's width long and with quite elegant black pincers, just standing there close to the edge of the valley road.

It was so still I thought it might be dead. Not ever something to assume with scorpions. It was very much alive. Hubby nudged him gently in the rear with the tip of his shoe and it immediately rotated to face him as if ready to attack, though it did not move its tail. A minute or so later he gave it another nudge in the back (hooking his leg around a little). This time it retreated a little, rotating away, facing him side on, then stood and waited. At the third nudge scorpion decided hubby was not a being to be easily intimidated, and made for the cover of the grasses at a nice clip, pincers swaying as it went.


After consulting our Pin'has Amitai guide to Arthropods of Israel we agreed it was most probably Buthotus judaicus, a common scorpion of the region and not particularly dangerous, though still quite nasty if it stings.
The other significant sighting was an interesting looking bird husband referred to as a 'weird flying thing' that he first believed to be a bat but not quite. Silent, it swept across the road and then seemed to twist in the air as if hawking for insects, then dived into the cover of the pines and cypresses. Two big to be an insect eating bat, wrong for a fruit bat and they're not so often found at this altitude.. and it was alone .. and didn't appear again. Wings too long and narrow for an owl. After some consideration we decided it had to be a nightjar.. (Nighthawk) Caprimulgus europaeus, a bird you might get if you imagined a cross between a swift and an owl, though of course you couldn't do that. They're common passage migrants in coniferous forests in late spring and fall. Right time of year, right habitat, right look. All I needed was right sound and that would take luck and patience to hear. I knew their churring song.. learned it many years ago in a forest in Wales and would love to hear it again.

Saturday was clear skies.. sky above a lovely shade of azure and temperature about 30 degrees C throughout most of the middle of the day. Visibility was pretty good all day, we could see beyond the desert hills clear across the Jordan rift valley to the Jordanian escarpment beyond.

This afternoon while lounging on my futon after lunch digesting and hearing the pleasant calls of sunbirds, senegal doves and of course house sparrows in the garden, I decided to go at the age old problem of Buteo identification. 'How hard can it be?' I thought to myself, pulling out my much beloved Uzi Paz 'Birds of Israel'.. great for descriptive accounts, and my wonderful field guide by Lars Svensson and Peter Grant, 'Complete guide to Birds of Europe and the Middle East'. (Hebrew edition). Original is Swedish, I don't know if it was translated into English.. (In the U.K. I used the Collins or Hamlyn guides.)

I studied a bunch of illustrations of different morphs, sexes and ages to sort out in my mind some generalities I could use to tell the species apart. Paz says that the long- legged buzzard and common buzzard can be hard to tell apart in the field.. well that's just what I wanted to hear:) and the guide also pointed out that the other main Buteo, the rough- legged is a much scarcer passage migrant so they can usually be eliminated. Honey buzzards are easier because they're very pale and have a definite dark barring underneath, and they also usually pass over in flocks.

I'd made some significant headway when my little boys yelled 'eagles!!' from the garden and the game was on. Two beautiful large raptors were soaring steadily higher right above us.. nice of them.. toward the sun, giving me plenty glare, a crick in the neck and making the subjects increasingly harder to see.
However, after much quizzing, comparing and discussion we decided on Long- legged buzzard, Buteo rufinus, ekev 'ayti in Hebrew ( 'eagle-like buzzard', so my sons can be forgiven). Probably a breeding pair nesting not far away in these here hills. I also came to the conclusion that most of the other buzzards we've been seeing were common buzzards, Buteo buteo on spring passage though some of them were also long-legged.

This evening ( Saturday) we went out a little earlier and at about 7.15 p.m. we did indeed hear the bee-eaters down in the 'north wing' of the valley. There are actually two valleys, one drains from the west .. that one we call the 'north wing' (since it's north of where we live. I'll call it 'north valley' from here on. The creek seldom flows unless there has been a strong rain, but it's likely there's some subterranean flow there. The other creek drains from the south.. this is the 'east wing' (east valley) since it's to the east of our street and parallel, (and continues on to the south 'upstream' when it's actually flowing) and this is the one we usually check out. Both drain towards the gazelle field, and then head north- east toward Wadi Qelt. That was probably hard to visualise. Try this.. lift up your right arm and point your fist to the left. Your lower arm is the north wing, your upper arm is the east wing and your elbow is at Gazelle field. If you didn't follow any of that, don't worry about it. I may include some kind of a map in the future.

We also heard quite a few turtle doves cooing down in the north valley forest as well as blackbirds singing, a call of a chukar, graceful warblers, stone curlews and quite a bit of vocal activity from the hyrax colonies by east valley road, and later at least four kinds of cricket one of which seemed to be going for the graceful warbler's singing job and sounding pretty good at it too.