Pleasant Sunday May 20th

View to the south, up the east valley
Hyraxes live in the boulders immediately to the left and right of the road here.

Weather a little cooler than yesterday and humidity has doubled to more than 60%. Jordan Rift valley no longer visible and sky visibly paler though clear

This morning the first calls I heard were the usual house sparrows, followed at about 5.20 a.m. by the pleasant, though sharp notes of a sunbird.
Something like 'tc tc tc TSUU sk sk sk sk' with variations.

Later two senegal doves joined in with a duet, or rather, more probably, a cooing dual, followed by some distant hooded crow conversations. Soon after that I fell asleep:)
I like to be up at night, best time to write and use the net in general, and I sleep when the kids are in school.

Early afternoon.. about 4 p.m. (husband had a wedding to attend later) we walked down to the valley to take some vegetable peels down to the porcupine den. I really don't know if they still use that den but I'm sure something around could eat the peels.

Two beautiful turtle doves were foraging on the creek path, two senegal doves further along. A small field by the creek has been planted this spring with new saplings. I have mixed feelings about that planting. I do hope this time they planted something native to the land. The introduced flora (eucalyptus and acacias) are not the optimum environment for our wildlife at all, even though the eucalyptus have been valuable all over the country for draining surface water and thereby controlling malaria. Still, the area lacks the olives, almonds, carobs and figs found in some other woods around the city, trees that are very important for our local biodiversity. Great tits, Syrian woodpeckers and blackbirds do thrive here but we're missing many of the smaller 'brown jobs' and other variety that fill out the ecological balance of this region. This is why I was so happy to find the pomegranate trees.. all native trees are a vital asset to the local fauna.
The planters also didn't know they had planted over a section of field which had been the breeding site of a family of black-eared wheatears last year, though I'd expect the wheatears could find alternative breeding sites. Still, that was a nice sheltered field for them, and predictable for me.
Blackbirds were singing beautifully, greenfinches twittering and 'cheeing' pleasantly and we saw some chukar partridges near the new saplings.
Feral pigeons, Jackdaws, and collared doves were also active as usual.