This week's animal sightings

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Cat and birds for Camera-Critters Sunday meme

More fun at Ben-Gurion Airport.
The cat was alert to the flashing arrow

"Hey, where did it go?"

But soon the luggage trolleys were redistributed to the empty stations, into the railings with the green arrow. And the airport cat had to scat and seek a new source of amusement.

Sitting at the computer today, on a quiet Sabbath day in my quiet village, I heard unfamiliar bird chatter out in the yard.

A whole flock of wild parrots!

I had to think a second, "Wait, am I still in Australia?" Never have I seen parrots flying in the Jerusalem area!

I had to use full zoom, but if you enlarge the photo you can just make out two parrots in the fig tree.

(The fig branches have lost their leaves for the winter, which gives me a better view of Jerusalem over across the valley.)

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Apparently these are the Dhara (pronounced Drara around here) parrots that love to feed on fruits. Well, the folks in this moshav/village certainly have plenty of assorted fruit trees in their gardens. I can guess that now that we have been discovered, the flock will be back again soon.

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The most recent information I could find was from this 2004 article in The Times of India:

Desi parrot is Israel's enemy No 1!

1 October 2004

JERUSALEM: Thirty years after they slipped unnoticed into Israel, Indian parrots are number one enemy of the Jewish state. The green Indian parrot, called "Drara" here, have been declared by the Israeli authorities as "harmful" for the fruit growers and their growth needs to be controlled, said the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

The bird has undergone an "incredible multiplication" during the last few years as its predators have rapidly decreased in numbers, Dr Yossi Lasham, an ornithologist, told the paper. The rich and natural food available all over northern Israel has aided its growth and they have wreaked havoc on date plantations in Amakim, Lasham said. Alarmed by the development, the authorities have issued directives to adopt measures to control or even reduce their numbers.

"Large Drara parrot cause great damage to the cultivators of dates, apples and other fruits," Glozner, a senior cultivator from the Beit Shean valley, said. "We have identified it as our real enemy". "Following the declaration, it would be possible to make a thinning process in places where the bird was causing great damages," the farmer said.

Drara parrots are seen flying joyfully in the national parks in Tel Aviv, where there is an "ongoing dialogue between those living as pets and those who managed to flee, narrating the sweet life outside the cage," the daily said.
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