Randall's release

There was a little cumulus in the sky yesterday but back to clear skies today.

Randall the chameleon (pic of him at #66) was released today, close to where we found the other chameleon on our walk (#66). He immediately turned yellow and stalked off at a fair clip. Son is sad, naturally, but understands the decision. Husband had consulted with pet shop owners about possibly obtaining a culture of wingless fruitflies and was informed that conservation laws on chameleons are stricter than those on tortoises in that they're a protected species and may not be legally taken from the wild as pets. We were quite surprised because they are quite common but on consideration it is not so surprising. Probably many have perished due to improper feeding. We looked up chameleon feeding on the web and discovered that mealworms are too chitinous. The kind of insects we can readily find that are suitable is limited and the boys are busy with school and cannot be expected to hunt and gather adequate feeds every day. We decided to release him without further delay. I'm sure he had not shown us all his repertoire.. yesterday some of his side spots moved into the turquoise zone - I had no idea he could manage that.

The walk was interesting today. Four gazelle were up on windsurfer hill, first time we've seen them up there in ages but hardly any surprise since that's just up from east field. We did see a buck up there many months ago. These had no clearly visible horns. A short while later another gazelle was noticed in the centre of east valley woods, crossing the creek from the east and heading under the pines. Soon after that two were seen running along the central trail and moving on under the pines toward the north. They were no doubt spooked by the police vehicles which I shall get to in a moment.

Just past the orchard and approaching 'look out corner' our watching was disturbed by a circling police chopper. It seemed to be circling us three times though I hardly thought we were suspicous. It was more annoying than anything because it made it difficult to hear birds and made wildlife more inclined to stay undercover. A short while later a police van, car and zaka vehicle of all things showed up. Turned out they were actually interested in a vehicle that had been abandonned near look-out corner though it had been abandonned several days ago- perhaps they suspected someone was hiding in it. It was a whole operation! After asking us if we had any connection to the vehicle and husband telling them it had been there about a week they turned their attention to their operation and we didn't feel like sticking around. I must admit we were curious, but we had to get supper on the table and it was nearly 7 p.m. We also knew there was nothing in the vehicle of any interest to anybody because we'd already checked it out, lol. Still, they have to do their job and in the relatively unlikely event that there was a terrorist hiding we didn't exactly want to be near any gun battle.

Heading back up the trail where we saw those last two gazelle running we heard a hobby calling from the east. It soon came into view gliding swiftly over the pines over the middle of east valley. Beautiful falcons, I always enjoy the sight of them. We also saw several collared doves, heard and/or saw plenty Syrian woodpeckers, Eurasian Jays, Hooded crows, greenfinches and Jackdaws, some great tits. We heard hyrax alarm chitters just up the hill to the west of the pumping station and noticed the feral dog family up there