Afternoon walks

Lately I have been going on a late afternoon walk most days with

my next door neighbour Hadas. We both generally are at our desks all day (or in the greenhouse sometimes for me) and start going a little stir-crazy about 4. We generally walk along the edge of the cliff behind Sede Boqer here.

Hadas is a big birder, so often we are going with the intent of looking for birds. For me it's more her looking for birds, and pointing them out to me when she spots them, and then telling me what they are. I never remember from one day to the next.

Usually we find birds, and sometimes they're "interesting" (Only reason that's in quotes, because I still don't know which birds are interesting and which aren't. That's Hadas's area.)

We also find interesting plants sometimes. Here are some parasitic ones that we found in the Midreshet. There was about 5 or 6 groups of them in a small area. They're about 1 metre tall.

A couple of weeks ago we found a nest. We've been going by every day to see if the mom is still there, and to look for hatchlings. Most days we can sit and watch the mom on the nest. One day, while I was working and so couldn't go on the walk, Hadas called me to say that there were hatchlings.

We went to find them the next day, but they were gone. And the mother too. With no trace of them at all. We're still not sure what happened--this is a photo of the inside of the nest--nothing to show that there were ever hatchlings there. We've been looking to see if she will re-nest, but it doesn't look like it.