The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Lake Secrets: The Mystery Of The Sick Reed | Israel today

2021-09-20T05:18:43.563Z


If there is one place where one can get an answer to a question written by Naomi Shemer, "What stories would surely have been for birds", then it is the regenerating sick reed • More than half a billion birds now pass through it on the long and brave journey south, making it one of the most important migration routes in the world. The reedbed we discovered a band of newly landed bricks, we flew with birds in virtual reality, we visited a botanical garden for endangered plants and much more


Six in the morning in the Hakal-KKL reedbed, and a group of large bricks gather on the bank of one of the canals. A night of wandering from Europe. As someone who begins each morning with a tour of the reedbed, she knows for sure that they were not here yesterday, what's more they huddle together and chatter vigorously - a behavior typical of those who have just landed and convey experiences about the wanderings and land they came to.

"The whales are the first protected bird in the world," says Inbar. dressed".

At the other end of the bank, a group of pelicans is gathering.

The pelican is the largest bird that migrates through us, and its wingspan can reach up to three meters.

It is in danger of global extinction, and all species migrate through Israel.

At this time of year, thousands of pelicans come to us straight from the mouth of the Danube.

The pelicans are also close as a band, but they are less talkative.

"They arrived last night because they are day travelers," Inbar explains.

“They are supposed to leave today, but it will be tougher for them to migrate because of the clouds that hit the thermals, hot air chimneys that are ejected from the ground and go up.

"Pelicans recognize the thermals that come in waves and go high with them. This way they save the energy of wing work. When they reach the peak height of the thermals, they glide far to the next thermals and also raise chicken with it, so they can go between 300 km and 500 km "From day almost effortlessly."

Like pelicans, storks and large birds of prey are day migrants in need of thermals, which requires them to migrate as the sun warms the ground and creates the same warm air currents.

"On a cloudy day there are not many thermals, so they may stay here for the weekend," she predicts, just like an airport authority inspector, who knows who lands and who takes off and when. Later in the tour I will find out No one wants to hear about another plane that had to make an emergency landing or, God forbid, worse because of an unfortunate bird that got stuck in the engine.

A band of pelicans in the reedbed, Thomas Kromnaker

• • •

If there is one place in the country that makes you wonder like Naomi Shemer "what stories would surely have been for the birds," it is in the sick reed.

The reedbed's strategic location, as a land bridge between the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, makes it a place where about a billion birds drain each year as a transit station on a journey from Europe to Africa in the fall, and back during the spring.

Some of them, just like on a connection flight, will stay here for one day and move on, without signing a passport.

A little insulting, when I think about it.

All this beauty and you're already leaving?

Others will decide that the sick reed is a beauty of a place for a few months' sublet.

Still, the standard of living here is fine, the weather is comfortable, and there is nothing about Israeli food.

It may be that what will attract them the most is actually the bustling social life and the acquaintance with hundreds of species of migratory birds, which come here from different countries.

According to the cheerful choirs that sound from the treetops, they do a beauty of mingling and networking here in the morning.

Although we have learned about the migration of birds "from the cold lands", the birds do not migrate because they are cold, but because of a lack of food during the winter in the northern regions.

Over half a billion birds are now leaving their homes in the northern lands and embarking on the brave journey south.

They will cross borders - albeit without the need for corona checks or masking - but despite the image of "free as a bird", a journey is not going to be easy.

Desert crossing awaits them, including the Sinai Desert, the deserts of Egypt and the Sahara Desert, and many days without food and water.

The reedbed is for them a "gas station" that is critical to the success of the migration.

Here the birds will fill the fat stores in their bodies, which serve as a kind of fuel for the rest of the journey.

The small birds, which include the songbirds and waterfowl, are unable to "catch thermals" and soar, and are therefore forced to gamma the thousands of miles of migration in active flight.

Since this flight consumes a lot of energy they migrate at night, so the temperatures are cooler and they do not heat up.

The birds that migrate at night are navigated by the stars, and those that migrate during the day are navigated by the position of the sun and the reading of the earth's magnetic field, and they are also aided by the sense of smell, memory and learning.

Closest to a bird in flight.

Virtual Reality Station, Anat Hermoni

• • •

The reedbed was established in the early 1990s by the JNF, as part of a project to rehabilitate the peatlands in the Hula Valley. Since then, it has become one of the most important bird migration routes in the world with a variety of species and habitats. 

The morning trip with Inbar is actually a journey of discovery for the new guests who arrived at night.

"Most of the birds migrate at night, the only evidence of their arrival in our districts is the calls and singing from the thicket and trees," she explains.

Thus, on our tour, the squid are exposed thanks to the turquoise sparkle that betrays them, the yellow snail that runs quickly through the grass, the great scythe that reads melancholy cries, and the hawks - whose name consists of the combination of the words beach and water - collected in shallow water for food.

Near the watermelon fields in the agricultural areas of the reedbed we notice magellans, birds with a sickle-like beak, who enjoy pecking at the pests around the crops, and the color of their wings is a physical color, i.e. varies according to the sun's rays.

In the center of the field moves slowly an interesting irrigation system, called a convexity.

It is a high wired irrigation system that draws water from the canal and flows it through pipes.

From the side it looks like a huge sprinkler spread out for a mile in the center of the field, moving on wheels and flooding the field to drive away all the barnacles, mice and pests from the ground.

This is a celebration for the white herons, who wait patiently for the burrows to come out of the ground and then prey on them and give the farmers a kind of biological pesticide.

Soon the black deer - birds of prey - that migrate towards the reedbed will also come here, and will share the spoils with them.

In this context, Inbar notes that there is a ruling according to which it is permissible to irrigate the land here even in the year of shemita, because then it will not crumble and when it is swept into the Sea of ​​Galilee, it will pollute the water, so it is a matter of mental supervision.

In the sky fly flocks numbering thousands of wasps, black inks and other predators.

Inbar explains that they go up and down with the thermals and stop to eat rodents in the fields, and in this way they also help the farmers to eradicate the pests.

Now, in early autumn, the north winds carry with them here the first storks rushing to the brown lands. "They arrive in huge flocks, mingle with the warm winds and fly quietly and in exemplary disorder towards faraway Africa," explains Inbar. After dinner they gather on the eucalyptus trees for the night and whisper in excitement.

"Some of the birds of prey have already arrived here, such as the wasp spider and the black eagle," adds Inbar. "These impressive birds, and it is one of the few places where you can sometimes see eight different species of eagles on the same day. Lucky visitors may also be able to watch their white-tailed eagle, the largest eagle in Israel, which hatched in the Hula egg before drying and after many restoration efforts.

Reveals the hidden corners.

Inbar Shlomit-Rubin, Field, Content and Training Manager at Agmon,

• • •

Our trip continues to the botanical garden established by the JNF in Agmon, an area of ​​20 dunams that was established to be a shelter for endangered plants. About a hundred different species of plants grow there, for many of which it is a meeting point between the ends of the world.

Here, for example, live the white nymph, which is its southernmost distribution limit in the world, alongside the papyrus gum plants which is their northernmost distribution point.

The white nymph, which seems to be floating on the surface of the water, is an example of a plant that, in order to cope with the lack of oxygen in the swampy soil, has developed airy tissue, which will help it store oxygen and transfer it to the roots.

The white nymphs became extinct from the land after the patient dried up, but details taken from the egg before drying out were preserved in botanical gardens and returned to the reedbed after its establishment.

Here we also encounter reed and end plants, each on its own and not in the combined name of the two, reed, accidentally common in our mouths.

The reed and end are able to grow both in the water itself and at their margins, and belong to the papyrus gum group, which is found in Africa and served as the first material from which writing paper was made in ancient Egypt.

The trip continues to the orchard area, where various fruit trees.

Here we meet the claw, a small bird that sews itself a nest from reed plants or other tall plants and sews them together with the help of cobwebs.

Sweet finches also fly next to us, those small, colorful birds that have pretty much disappeared from the landscape.

Inbar explains that they feed on the seeds of the thorns, and because we tend to uproot thorns, they have no food left.

About a decade ago, they decided to stop uprooting thorns in the reedbed and the finches returned.

Inbar takes the opportunity to call on people to leave a few thorns in the gardens as well, so that the sweet finches can continue to arrive.

Later we also meet the Siskins, a brown bird with a white neck and a black cap.

"In the past, they were called Sharoni fucking, because they are equipped with shoulder spurs with which they attack and because they lived in the Sharon area. They make a lot of noise, territoriality and also very aggressive," says Einbar.

The next stop on the tour is the waterfowl lookout, thinly floating and wide from which you can observe the birds in the reedbed and learn how they have adapted traits to survive.

Thus, for example, the ducks adapted to life in the aquatic environment with the help of a fatty substance whose feathers are smeared with it, so that the water is not absorbed by the feathers and prevents them from flying.

The humpbacks, named after the fact that they live at the meeting between the shore and the water, have enlarged and lengthened their legs and beaks so that they can hunt in deep water, and the cormorant has developed an impressive diving ability so that he can stay underwater for long minutes.

Trees are scattered in the water so that the waterfowl can sit on them, and we watch the scattered branches in an alternating display of Magellan, cormorant, pelican, gray heron, marbled duck, swallows and more.

On another branch placed in the water, the gray herons sit quietly, without movement and with great patience, lurking for the fish.

When a fish finally comes near them, they send out their long necks and quickly swallow it whole.

Among them, various species of ducks swim comfortably in the reed waters, some of them autumn guests like the crackers and some of them that will stay with us for the whole winter, such as the chainsaws, mares and knees.

We notice birds similar to ducks, which spawn in large flocks on the water.

These are the lakes, which have probably identified a sign of danger.

Another interesting stop in the reedbed is the Pelican Lookout, an octagonal structure with glass windows overlooking the vegetation inside the reedbed, especially towards a small island known to the reedbed people as the "donkey island", named after the donkeys brought there to dilute the vegetation.

The recommended hours to visit Agmon are in the morning or in the afternoon, and Agmon offers visitors a variety of ways to explore the area, independently or guided.

You can rent different types of bikes, club cars, or go on a guided tour.

The most well-known and beloved attraction in the reedbed, especially during the winter when the cranes stay here, is the observation of the hiding carts in the morning or evening, so the cart is parked at a certain point, and while keeping quiet allows observation of the birds getting ready for sleep. Of a new day.

A variety of ways to explore the area, independently or guided, Ancho Gush / Ginny

The cranes, by the way, provide another example of the connection between agriculture, nature and tourism in the reedbed: they come here in the autumn season, just after the end of the peanut dish in the valley fields.

After threshing, many peanuts remain in the fields and the stray cranes clean them, thus preventing them from rotting and turning into a breeding ground for harmful fungi.

However, those cranes may become a hazard for farmers with the growth of new crops, so they are expelled from the fields after they have finished eating the peanuts, in the hope that many of them will continue their migration south to Africa.

Those who decide to stay and do not choose to migrate, are fed during the winter months with controlled feeding, in order to help them move away from the fields where new crops have been sown.

This venture has become an international-scale tourist attraction, allowing visitors to enjoy watching thousands of cranes from a short distance.

Like the peanuts in the fields.

A crane lands, Shai Agmon

• • •

Agmon recently launched an option for fun and especially enriching independent entertainment - virtual instruction using a GPS-based tablet that can be rented at the entrance and travel with it between eight points around the site.

The instruction is accompanied by instructional videos adapted to the seasons, along with detailed voice explanations that open automatically upon arrival at each point in the route.

It is advisable to bring binoculars or rent one, to maximize the experience of watching the migratory birds.

Another attraction, which requires prior arrangement, is a guided visit to a bird research and drowning station located on an island in the heart of the lake and operated as part of monitoring and preserving the bird world in the reedbed.

Here the tiny birds are observed, such as the songbirds, some of which weigh less than ten grams, and yet manage to migrate at night between continents.

Several times a week, station researchers deploy special nets in which wild birds are trapped, very gently marked with a tiny marking ring and released on their way.

The process makes it possible to monitor changes in the bird population in the area, check whether there has been an increase or decrease in their number, as well as learn about migratory routes and create habitats that will suit different species.

Only about a week ago, says Inbar, a small reed was caught here, a bird weighing 11 grams, which carried a ring from Hungary.

The station works closely with academic research bodies in Israel and abroad and hosts researchers from many universities. The quality of the area for their preservation.

The move to the island is also an attraction in itself.

A special raft was installed at the site to cross the water canals, and recently the raft was upgraded and made wheelchair accessible.

In the future, it is planned to sail with the help of a solar system.

In the future, it is planned to sail with the help of a solar system.

The raft for crossing the reed, Ancho Gush / Ginny

Just before the corona, the JNF also inaugurated a new and spectacular visitor center in the reedbed, with large glass walls overlooking the reedbed, an auditorium decorated with lighted birds, a buffet and conference halls.

CCTV broadcasts live from the reedbed and spectacular images of birds and migratory birds hang on the walls, but the highlight is the virtual reality station, where you can feel closest to a bird in flight, and even fly with a flock of birds from the Sea of ​​Galilee over the Hula Valley - a wonderful experience for children and adults together.

During the Sukkot holiday (September 28-21), the site will be open from 06:30 to 17:00, and on holiday eves it will operate from 08:00 to 15:30.

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2021-09-20

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-29T08:13:29.229Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.