Weird and wonderful plants of the north valley

First.. please take a look back at the previous two entries again. I have added pics of what north gazelle field and the eucalyptus grove look like today so you can see the contrast between end of dry season and the effects of the rainy season.

I took so many pics today it was difficult to choose what to share with you first so I'm probably going to spread them out over the next few days. This is just a view of a little meadow by the north watercourse area facing back east. It's full of mustard and red anemone and many other flowers too small to see but you might make out more by clicking on it. As you see the wattle acacias are now in bloom adding their own hue of yellow. Their flowers below.

Plenty hooded crows active around. Not sure how many European cuckoos about, at least two because we heard them in East valley and in the woods north of north valley. Swifts aloft, greenfinches about, twittering and chawwing, blackbirds in the woods and singing in the garden on and off all day, laughing doves cooing and active about the street as well as, of course, feral pigeons and house sparrows. Collared doves just into the woods and graceful warblers. Sunbirds likely heard but not so obvious today.

Many people who have not heard a cuckoo have been fooled by the coo of the collared dove. I was wondering today if the collared dove are not sometimes fooled by the cuckoos! You wouldn't think they would be but on our way back when a cuckoo started up across north valley it was promptly answered by the coos of a collared dove up on the south slopes, which then flew down into a pine in the valley and appeared to be looking for that cuckoo! Too funny.

Gazelle, adult male intently following a female along a wooded part of the closer skyline to the north.

weather today (sunday) range: 5.5-12.5 degrees C. Time of our walk, about 6 p.m. ST , ~11 degrees C, humidity ~65%, winds W/NW 2-9 kt

Husband spotted this Arum Arum palaestinum (?) Luf in Hebrew, growing not far from the watercourse, another one I could not pass by! These extraordinary plants attract small flies to pollinate them by producing a smell of rotten meat. First of the season I've seen

I could not resist this newly emerging first of the season 'baby' bear's breeches (Acanthus) even though I unwittingly sat down on another set of Acanthus leaves close by to take it and was quite uncomfortable for a while after!

On our way back up noticed still quite a bit of Roman squill blooming together with cyclamen along with the later bloomers.

Honeybee got yesterday's mystery pic (at funtrivia.com where I also post this blog), It was indeed a Darkling beetle Adesmia, which has such interesting texture.

Mystery photo. This one had my boys perplexed and guessing for a while !