Blogs from Haifa District, Israel, Middle East - page 13

It is now orchid season here in northern Israel. For its size, Israel has an amazing diversity of terrestrial orchid species (28 species), and Mount Carmel, on which Haifa is situated, is home to 21 of them. We recently discovered a trail around the sides of the hill on top of which sits our neighborhood, Vardiya. Along this trail are the ruined foundations of old buildings and lots of areas with rock outcrops and very thin soil. Trees and shrubs can’t survive in the thin soil and among the old foundations, so these areas are havens for wildflowers. We have found hundreds of orchid plants with four species in bloom so far. Some of these orchid flowers are beautiful, for example the delicate butterfly orchid (Orchis papilionacea, aka O. caspia), but my favorites by far are ... read more

We’ve had some time between research flowering seasons. The rains have been sparse, and we had a couple of bouts of unseasonably cold weather, both of which have set back the spring flush of flowering. This delay and the break between the end of the last Hebrew class and the start of the next have given me some time off to just enjoy the weeks of warm weather and the flowers that are starting to bloom. Kaitlin, my former Puget Sound research student, has arrived, and we have started to explore the “natural” areas in and around Haifa. It is hard to say “natural” here because everywhere here has been occupied for thousands of years, and there isn’t really anywhere that is devoid of human traces. Nevertheless, there are places that have stayed more or less ... read more

These sorts of signs are in every restroom at Haifa University. The translation for the top one is: “Please! The paper goes into the trash can.” The bottom one says, "Throw the paper into the trash can." We’re not really sure what to make of them. As you can see from the picture, there is a small wastebasket next to the toilet. The wastebasket is almost always empty, just like this one. On the occasions when I have seen discarded paper in the basket, the paper is never … how to say this delicately … streaked with brown. The signs are in both the men’s and the women’s restrooms, which eliminates one obvious possibility. We want to do the right thing with our paper, but we're confused. We’ve asked numerous Israelis to explain the meaning of ... read more

I took the train from Tel Aviv to Haifa and arrived into Haifa at 8:59pm on Sunday night. I was told that it would be fine to arrive anytime after 9:00pm on Sunday evening, so this was the best I could do. It was amazing the feeling I got the closer I got to Haifa, I started to look out the window to the east because I knew I would be able to see the Shrine of the Báb soon and in less than a minute I could see the Shrine of the Báb, it was so wonderful, its been over 20 years since I’ve been in Haifa and I could not wait to be there again. It was lit beautifully and it brought me so much happiness. When the train stopped in Haifa and I ... read more

Ok, I just have to show you what we found today on our eggplant plants: gi-bleeping-normous caterpillars. They look just like the tobacco/tomato hornworm caterpillars I’ve used for years in my Advanced Ecology course, except on steroids. These are apparently Acherontia atropos, or “Death’s head hawkmoth” larvae, so-named for the skull pattern on the back of the thorax of the adult moth. We have 4 of these 10-12 cm long caterpillars, looking pretty close to pupation size. Wikipedia says that when threatened, the caterpillars will thrash at both ends and make rapid clicks with their mandibles, and even bite, as Kaitlin can attest. Zach picked one up and carried it around for quite a while without eliciting any of these responses. Apparently the caterpillar either didn’t realize how threatening Zach actually is, or perhaps it was ... read more