Sept 5th
Shortly before 7 p.m. we found gazelle.
It is truly amazing how well a whole group of these beautiful antelopes can camouflage themselves. We found a group of eight on the lower slopes of the hill just a few hundred feet north of 'look-out corner' but pretty much invisible even to husband's sharp eyes. They were clear with 10x binoculars- once you've seen them. Finding the first is the trick. Once the eye picks out one, the brain recognizes 'copies' of the search image and they seem to materialize out of the scenery. I had decided to check out a part of the slope where we've seen them before and to my joy, there they were. My husband confirmed the count and we both recounted to make sure we hadn't missed any, as they were strung out in a loose line. To my unaided eye they were invisible unless I happened to notice one take a couple of paces forwards. Their white bellies look like the semi-submerged limestone rocks all along that hillside and their coats blend into the soft red-brown earth. Their dark flank stripe just looks like a rock shadow. If they're facing directly away the striped black and white tail pattern stands out much more and helps make them visible, but these weren't, they were sideways on and the effect is brilliant. They were all grazing, head down most of the time and steadily working their way east.. for the most part stationary and just munching on the sparse scrubby vegetation at their feet, each moving on a few paces every few minutes. No adult buck:( My mind won't rest easy till I see him again. We tried looking through the east part of north valley where we'd seen him before but he wasn't there.
Earlier, not long after 6 p.m. we noticed interesting aerial manoevres over 'windsurfer hill' . No less than six falcons present, most probably hobbies. Most seemed immature from what we could tell of their plumage, and practising their flying skills over the hill. I was inclined to think they were playing and practising but some of the play looked a little rough. We watched two falcons duel in flight, rise, almost tangle, fall, over and over again. There were another two raptors.. due to distance, speed of movement and silhouettes it was hard to make out what I was seeing but these were somewhat heavier birds than the falcons but not the wingspan of a crow so I took them for a pair of sparrowhawks. At one point one of the falcons entered into a 'duel' with a sparrowhawk for some minutes. This did seem slightly vicious but not violent and both parties rose, sparred, tumbled and twisted in the air quite impressively. Perhaps both were immature and even though different species, not a serious fight. Two of the hobbies left the 'party' and headed off west over us at good speed.
Apart from these wonderful sightings the woods were pretty quiet. Collared doves, Jays, greenfinches and syrian woodpeckers were active as usual but chukar partridges, blackbirds, stone curlews and hoopoes were keeping a low profile. Great tits and bulbuls were heard calling and our sunbird was singing in the Bauhinia earlier. The cistern is almost empty, the doves can perch on the stones piled on the bottom now, which they do regularly. Most of the pomegranates on the trees by the cistern were already torn open and partly devoured though they can't be fully ripe yet- probably by jays and such. We've been watching them ripen and I was hoping to enjoy one or two but the wildlife beat us to it.
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