In the middle of Jerusalem, between the Knesset and the Supreme Court, there's a beautiful little wild space surrounding a small shack. Inside there are books and benches and posters and tee-shirts, and a place to sit and peek outside through a long, wide slit in the wall. It's for the birds.
The Jerusalem Bird Observatory is a wonderful spot that's getting a new make-over (and hopefully an updated web site). I visited with my mom a few weeks ago and they were in the process of re-landscaping the habitat so that it would be more inviting to both birds and people who want to watch them. We also got to observe the banding of a cute little bird, something that looked and sounded a lot like our chickadees here in the States but wasn't, exactly, though it was in the same family. I'm pretty sure it was one of these.
And we saw a hoopoe strutting around in the garden. We don't have anything like that here. When that crest fluffs out, it's quite pretty. Here are more photos from Islam Online, along with the interesting factoid that the hoopoe is mentioned twice in the Quran. It's mentioned in the Hebrew Bible twice, too -- both times on a list, along with the stork, the heron and the bat, of birds we may not eat.
Shabbat Shalom.
