A variety of Wildlife

May 9

Just after 4 pm, overcast, warm and breezy

Today my favourite bird sighting must have been a gorgeous *male red backed shrike* (Lanius collurio) in an acacia near the dry stream bed. This is the first time I've seen this kind of shrike in this area though I've seen them in other parts of Jerusalem. Husband spotted it first of course, he has a sharp eye. 'Well spotted, Bruce' . The shrike would dive down to the ground, foray for a few seconds then return to his post on the branch, silent and poised.

(Around here we've seen a good number of the handsome Masked shrike and the occasional great grey shrike. These are the 'bad boys' of the perching birds.. a passerine that aspires to be a bird of prey with a bandit mask and neat plumage, these birds have panache. )

When we reached the orchard we heard a tantalizing 'piu piu' high pitched whistling call over to the east. Too high and thin to be stone curlew, too sharp to be bee-eater. I was intrigued. We moved on to the north to look out over the wild field and hill in that direction. Husband spotted a gazelle.. a female, way up ahead, and then caught sight of another. I saw something on top of a boulder I wanted to investigate so we headed north over a rough field and slopes. The earth looked reddish, rich and fertile with a wide range of xerophytic plants, almost all of them with spines, thorns and prickles of various shapes. We figure the earth is well fertilized by goats and gazelle and turned over by plenty mole rats, (Spalax sp.) we saw their mounds everywhere.

After discovering that the thing I wanted to investigate was just a curious rock formation and not an interesting bird on a boulder, we stopped to rest and take a look around. I sat on a white limestone boulder to remove all the spider shaped prickles that had made their way into my shoes, and to watch and listen.

Further to the north the female gazelle came into view. She was picking her way north west, turning around occasionally to see if a second gazelle was following. The other was almost her size, we figure her offspring and almost full grown.

Movement caught my eye at the road to the east (the Ramallah bypass road in this case) and the 'piu' mystery was solved. I almost laughed, surprised I hadn't recognized it. A pair of *Tristram's grackles* were sitting on the security fence by the road, occasionally darting up and down between road and rocks, scavenging for food. Tristram's starlings/grackles are quite large shiny black birds, resident only to the Jordan rift valley area and all its wadis (They're also nomadic over a greater range outside the breeding season). A little smaller than jackdaws, they have an orange wing patch and a whistle like a mynah. The female is not quite as shiny as the male and has a rather greyish head. I get the impression they would make quite intelligent and smart pets if their whistle doesn't drive everyone crazy within a few days.

I figure they reached Jerusalem via Wadi Qelt as this wadi provides an 'artery' leading from Jerusalem to Jericho in the rift valley and these starlings are certainly plentiful in the wadi. I've seen a flock of just over twenty of these starlings in our neighbourhood but usually in groups of two to six when they occur. I've also regularly seen one to four individuals right in the Old City at the Western Wall and on the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, again most probably arrived via a tributary wadi between the Temple mount and the Mount of Olives.]

More movement and rather frantic calling to the north, further along the road drew my attention. A *common kestrel *Falco tinnunculus* was divebombing something on the ground. A large dark brown raptor was hunkered there. The kestrel repeatedly hovered then dove at it, though never quite making contact. Occasionally the raptor would raise a great magnificent wing when the falcon annoyed it a little too much for comfort. Shortly a hooded crow joined in the fray. The kestrel backed off, then joined in again a few seconds later.. at first I think intimidated by the much larger crow, then unable to resist its impulse to harry the raptor. .. and this is something I've never seen before.. a falcon and crow together harassing another bird of prey, though they didn't seem to be working as a team. The raptor finally got up and glided a few dozen metres distant and settled down on the ground again at which point it seemed the crow and kestrel simply had enough of that and went on their way.

And so had we :) It was time for us to go home.. and get the rest of the prickles out of my shoes :)