Artists for Nature Foundation – Hula Valley project
Migrating storks and cranes blocked by rain clouds filling the Hula valley.
I’ve never seen migration on this scale before. To be in the rift valley... the meeting of tectonic plates. We were told that 500 million birds follow the valley each spring to reach their summer breeding grounds. Like a tidal movement or an inhalation.
To see clouds of circling storks gradually spiralling northwards, a tower of birds forming a slowly spinning column over the flat valley floor. If they Veer west they cross the Naftali hills into Lebanon, at their height they must be able to look across Lebanon to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. If they veer east they look over the Golan heights and into Syria.
On the third day of our stay we could see rain clouds building to the north. I had spent the morning sketching the cranes... gradually trying to speed up the way I handled them as well as getting familiar with the plants in the fields and ditches.
With rain looking likely I headed for one of the hides to be near shelter. Looking up I saw a huge tower of storks and cranes seeming to be horizontally static but just rising up and up. One by one the birds began to lower their undercarriages, arch their wings to release the air, appearing to sit on cushions of air with their ‘arms’ held crooked, necks erect... parachuting down in steady spirals like dandelion seedlings. At the last they would push down wings, flapping and stretching necks to aim for a landing place.
The far shore of the lake gradually blurring grey and white as the thousands of birds came to earth.
Big birds allowing the imagination to trace out land and air masses.- Africa – Namibia
- Kruger, South Africa
- Africa- Ethiopia
- Africa – Ethiopa -yabelo
- Africa – Ethiopa -Liben plain
- Africa – Ethiopa -studio
- Barbados
- Crete
- France, Les Ecrins
- France – Riviera
- Riviera
- INDIA – Bhandavgarh 2006
- India 2006-Bharatpur
- Israel – Hula Valley – Studio
- Israel – Golan Heights
- Israel – Hula Valley
- Spain – Alcornicales
- Spain 2009 – studio prints
- Spain 2009
- Spain 2006
- Picos de Europa
- Scotland – Islay
- Nature in Art 2001