In the video: Nucleario protects young trees (angle)
On the holiday of Tu Bashvet, families gather to celebrate Rosh Hashanah for the New Year - the time when the trees begin to grow and nature begins to produce grain for man. In recent years, Tu Bashvet has become a nature holiday, so as part of the tradition, people plant trees and deal with environmental issues.
But this holiday of nature, and those trees whose growth we celebrate, has a great meaning especially for the animals that live next to them, in them or in their shade, and the connection is a natural connection of millions of years.
Dotan Rotem, an open areas ecologist at the Nature and Gardens Authority, spoke about the uses of trees in the lives of animals in the wild.
They are already blooming.
Where will you see almonds in Israel?
Shadow - hiding and shelter
Photographing the trees is apparently a trivial or "obvious" thing, but many animals use the shade of the trees for various purposes, and not necessarily the purposes that are obvious to us.
The first of which is being in an area where the sun's radiation is not direct, which for the animals that live in the wild, this fact is very important.
The tree is shaded over its surroundings and the temperature in its shade is significantly lower than under direct sunlight.
It can equally provide shelter during heavy rain or hail.
In addition to this, finding an onion can camouflage an animal and serve as a hiding place or alternatively an ambush point.
The trees provide shade on hot days.
Rams in the wild of Yatbata (photo: Nature and Parks Authority, Yaniv Cohen)
Ken - nature's home
Many birds place their nests in trees.
Delicate songbirds with a small nest can place their nests in the edge of the tree, a place that will be difficult for reptiles and other predators to reach.
Others who are heavy and have larger nests will place it on a branch, while large birds of prey will place their nests so that they rest on a large number of branches in order to get maximum support.
Some species build their nests inside the tree trunk.
The best known among them in Israel is the Syrian woodpecker.
This species drills a hole with its beak into which it enters.
The woodpeckers live in burrows all year round, and during the nesting season they choose one of them in order to establish the family.
The cockatoo, known as an invasive species, often expands existing holes and uses them for nesting.
They don't drill the first hole themselves and can therefore push out the local woodpecker.
Nocturnal raptor species can use existing holes in trees or rotting tree stumps.
This is an important reason to leave such trees in the grove, even if the feeling is that they are not aesthetic in the green space.
But also small mammals such as the tree sleeper and the common rat are tree dwellers and typical nest builders.
While the common rat is known from the pine forests, the rare tree snoozer lives in dense common oak groves in the Upper and Lower Galilee.
For those who visit Ben Al-Haliti Horesh Tal and want to see an amazing phenomenon, are invited to approach the Tabor oak trees that decorate the garden.
Look at the bark of the tree and find columns of ants on the back of a kind of white velvet.
These are special ants that build their nests in wood cavities created by lightning strikes or local decay.
Chicks of a white-tailed eagle in a nest (photo: Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Ezra Hadad)
The leaves of the trees - food
Many species of mammals also feed on the leaves of the trees.
In a rough way, you can separate those that graze grass (Grazers) and those that feed on tree leaves (Browsers).
Species such as the Persian wild boar, which can be seen in the Carmel Wildlife, or for the lucky ones in Nahal Sorek and Nahal Kaziv, where they were released into the wild, are definite leaf eaters, although they will not eat juicy grass in the winter either.
There are, of course, many arthropods that feed on tree leaves, those that gnaw on the bark and trunk.
Bark beetles are considered a serious pest that can expose trees to various diseases and even to dehydration.
On the other hand, they accelerate the decomposition of dry wood and reduce material available for burning.
Leaf aphids and others feed on the sap of the leaves, they secrete 'honeydew' - sugars and ants come to collect the sugar from their bodies.
Those who cast in Carmel on Mount Meron and in the Judean Mountains are invited to observe the soft leaves of the Kalil Horesh.
Sometimes we see damaged oval-shaped leaves.
Anyone who does that is a leaf-cutter bee.
It is a single bee that cuts the leaf, rolls it up and lines the sides of the nest.
Yael Novi Melach on a leaf of a helix (photo: Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Omri Uzami)
hiding place
In the desert and the forest you can find parts of dead trees.
Some are still standing upright, others are lying on the ground.
In all cases, these tree parts are also used by many animals as a hiding place and even as a home.
Termites as well as ants of various species build their nests in dead wood.
Various beetles find shelter in the dead tree parts and even feed on them, as do spiders and reptiles that settle among the dead tree parts and enjoy shade and ambush points for prey.
Birds use dry branches to build their nests.
That's why you shouldn't collect dead wood for the campfire, and you should take care to bring wood to the campfire from regulated places, or from the house (wooden surfaces, etc.) and also let the dead wood parts serve their important role in the ecosystem.
Birds use dry branches to build their nests.
White-breasted kingfisher (photo: Nature and Parks Authority, Yaniv Cohen)
Trees as signposts
Different species of mammals use trees as points to mark their territory.
We all know this phenomenon in dogs, which many of us raise at home, but even the most significant wild animals do this.
Felines, such as lions, usually mark the boundaries of their territory with urine, and thus they convey a message that this is an area where they operate and other lions avoid entering it.
Also using hooks, scratching the trunks of the trees and rubbing the branches - all these are methods of marking the territory.
Lions usually mark the boundaries of their territory with urine (Photo: Official website, Indianapolis Zoo)
Trees as cosmetic sites
Have you ever tried to scratch your back with your foot?
Well don't try at home.
Well some animals are clumsy and cannot reach all parts of their body using their limbs.
If you walk in the grove and forest, notice that the bark of some trees seems to be scraped at a height of half a meter to a meter.
If you look closely you can find animal hairs left attached to the trunk.
One of the species that uses tree trunks for scratching purposes is the wild boar, but cows also do this, only that they are taller, so the scratching marks will appear a little higher on the trunk.
The Negev deer under a spiral system (Photo: Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Yaniv Cohen)
squeezes
A phenomenon known to many ingots are shriveling.
These are growths characteristic of different tree species that develop around the nest of aphids or wasps.
Certain barks of the worm oak would produce dyes for processing hides.
Ela Atlantite's Etz in Emek Habotana (Photo: Walla! NEWS system, Ziv Reinstein)
Voice production
The woodpecker, in addition to pecking at tree trunks, produces sounds ("clicks") that are both a declaration of the woodpecker as his "property" or "territory" (a territory that belongs to him, among members of his species) and also as an identification call between woodpecker mates.
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