goin' lizard hunting
A strange thing happened this weekend. The bureaucracy parted long enough for me to plan a field trip to catch lizards. There is still some red tape to cut through before actually getting to catch them, but I'm at least as far as planning the trip for tomorrow. We'll head to Eilat tomorrow to meet with the local Wildlife Ecologist, and the local ranger, and see if we'll actually be allowed to collect. Apparently we're going to be collecting on an area that's to become a landing strip, so they're okay with us collecting lizards there. That hasn't kept them from making life difficult, but we do at least have permits. The plan is to go there, meet with the ranger and ecologist and go set up the 'traps'.
The way we catch these sounds a bit comical. They are large lizards, about the size of an iguana or a medium sized goanna, and live on the ground in the desert. They dig big burrows - up to 10m long, according to a guy who dug up a couple of them. They sit at the entrance to these burrows and bask most of the day, and if they see you coming, they bolt into the burrow. So the trick is to set up a net around the burrow entrance, but not actually covering it. We'll attach strings to the net and back away far enough that the lizard won't be disturbed. Then, when it comes out, we'll pull the net over the burrow and run. In theory, the lizard will run into the net and either get caught, or at least get held up long enough that we can grab it. Otherwise, it's a footrace across the desert. Should be rather comical, I think.
We'll be doing this for a couple of days, hopefully that will be long enough to catch 6 animals. We'll also be hanging around in a great spot to see migrating birds. Israel is the major migratory corridor for birds migrating from Europe to Africa for the winter (and back in the spring, of course), and this is the height of the migration. It's really amazing what you see here. This week, we've been seeing huge flocks of eagles soaring from thermal to thermal. It's an impressive sight to see 400-500 eagles flying in a slowly spiraling bunch. They rise for a few minutes, then head south to the next thermal. Amazing really. Lots of other, smaller birds flying by, too, but I'm not good enough to tell what they are yet. Learning, though. So, the upshot is that if the lizard trip fails, we should at least be able to see some interesting birds. At least that's the hope.
So, it occurred to me that I've been writing about how small Israel is, so here are a couple of facts and comparisons. Israel is about 21,000 square km (about 8000 sq miles), which is about the size of the state of New Hampshire, or for the Aussies reading this, about the size of Kakadu and Litchfield Parks combined. Current population estimates are about 6.5 million, though that is just an estimate as official numbers are hard to come by. That's a little smaller than the population of the San Francisco Bay area, or not quite twice the size of Sydney. Sede Boqer, where I live, has a population of perhaps 400, which is about the size of my high school graduating class, or one section of the freshman biology lecture at the University of Wisconsin.
The way we catch these sounds a bit comical. They are large lizards, about the size of an iguana or a medium sized goanna, and live on the ground in the desert. They dig big burrows - up to 10m long, according to a guy who dug up a couple of them. They sit at the entrance to these burrows and bask most of the day, and if they see you coming, they bolt into the burrow. So the trick is to set up a net around the burrow entrance, but not actually covering it. We'll attach strings to the net and back away far enough that the lizard won't be disturbed. Then, when it comes out, we'll pull the net over the burrow and run. In theory, the lizard will run into the net and either get caught, or at least get held up long enough that we can grab it. Otherwise, it's a footrace across the desert. Should be rather comical, I think.
We'll be doing this for a couple of days, hopefully that will be long enough to catch 6 animals. We'll also be hanging around in a great spot to see migrating birds. Israel is the major migratory corridor for birds migrating from Europe to Africa for the winter (and back in the spring, of course), and this is the height of the migration. It's really amazing what you see here. This week, we've been seeing huge flocks of eagles soaring from thermal to thermal. It's an impressive sight to see 400-500 eagles flying in a slowly spiraling bunch. They rise for a few minutes, then head south to the next thermal. Amazing really. Lots of other, smaller birds flying by, too, but I'm not good enough to tell what they are yet. Learning, though. So, the upshot is that if the lizard trip fails, we should at least be able to see some interesting birds. At least that's the hope.
So, it occurred to me that I've been writing about how small Israel is, so here are a couple of facts and comparisons. Israel is about 21,000 square km (about 8000 sq miles), which is about the size of the state of New Hampshire, or for the Aussies reading this, about the size of Kakadu and Litchfield Parks combined. Current population estimates are about 6.5 million, though that is just an estimate as official numbers are hard to come by. That's a little smaller than the population of the San Francisco Bay area, or not quite twice the size of Sydney. Sede Boqer, where I live, has a population of perhaps 400, which is about the size of my high school graduating class, or one section of the freshman biology lecture at the University of Wisconsin.
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