Hi, I wanted to share the last weekend trip , after a very strong snow storm two weeks ago we managed to get away and travel up north to play with some snow. such snow storms are quite rare and snow surviving for a week and still being over 1m high in some places. first time I had enough clean snow to make some fruit tea using snow so here are some pics: The pine forest we ventured into , here the snow was 35cm deep setting up the kit: the outcome - used dried mix of peach,cranberries, apple and hibiscus. after a bit of hiking we found deeper snow and some wolf tracks the Golan heights are the home of gray wolfs, not very impressive but the are around and on the way home loosing the snow but meeting some other natives
Nice to have you back, Doron, if only for a while! The weather was rather more clement when I was in that general area in April this year. The Golan Heights are in the background haze, but you get the idea:-
David have you visited my neck of the woods and didnt drop a mail you could have gotten free beer and a tour guide
Yeah, I sneaked in for a couple of days last April - that is, once I'd got past the charming immigration lady (NOT!) at 6.00am one day. She wasn't impressed by my beard which I'd grown since having my passport photograph taken! It was part of a cruise and I wanted to do the tourist thing - Jerusalem one day and Sea of Galilee the other - so no time for swanning about unfortunately. I didn't manage to get to the Dead Sea so hopefully another time. Anyway, yours is a lovely country (in stark contrast to one of your neighbours I visited the previous two days ) and I wish I'd had longer... Edit: What was this, lurking in the rocks at the side of the Sea of Galilee?
Surely not - I do otter surveys and, although I've never seen one and don't expect to, I don't think they look like that. Otters have a much more rounded snout, I think. At the time, I thought I heard someone referring to it as a coypu and I saw those in the "River Jordan" later that day. Much bigger altogether:- Another unidentified large hairy creature lurking in the "River Jordan" And yes, before you ask - I was on coach No.2 and yes, I do need to lose some weight...
It looks to me that the tiny hairy beast is a muskrat. Almost the size of a beaver and used for skinning here in DK where they are farmed. You dont need to loose weight David, you just look full and healthy. Rememeber rehab is for quitters. Claus C
The other hairy beast between the clifs looks like a sort of racoon-dog. They prefer wet areas near lakes where they can harvest birdseggs amongst things. Claus C
Nah, the 'thing' swimming in the water near the semi-submerged metal handrail was definitely a coypu and about a metre long, including the tail. The animal in the rocks was much smaller, maybe 30cm.
Hi David good to know you enjoyed my neck of the woods if you ever drop by again please let me know. The first critter hiding in the rock is actually a rock hyrax very common here in rocky terrain interesting fact about them is that the closest living relatives to hyraxes are the modern day elephants. The sound one is a Nutria or coypu, they are also known as the river rats.(as David said) this is actually an invading specie brought for the fur industry in the 70s but because of the warm weather the fur wasn't a thick as expected and the industry was abandoned freeing some of them and they quickly adapted causing lots of damage to the local wildlife.
Yes, according to Wiki, they were also introduced into the UK for fur but later eradicated because of the damage they had done. However, in 2012, a 'giant rat' was killed in County Durham, (in which I live) with authorities suspecting the animal was, in fact, a coypu...
