Jerusalem highlights

This is probably as close to real-time blogging as I am going to get. I've edited the highlights from our past three days in Jerusalem.

Panorama of Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives:


The Western Wall:


Dome of the Greek Hall at the Church of Holy Sepulcher:


Cemetery on the Mount of Olives:


Close-up of the Dome of the Rock, with Old Jerusalem laid out behind it:


Close up of the Old Jerusalem from the ramparts of the city wall. Check out all those satellite dishes on the roof. Everywhere else a place like this would have been long converted to an open-air museum, but this continues to be an actual living city.


Some other Old City impressions:






And one Modern City impression:

US vs Mexico

There are few places in the US where you can go to a city park and gaze at another country a hundred clear yards away. Anzalduas City Park in Mission, TX is one such place. It sits on the Rio Grande, on the other side of which is Mexico.

Here's a puzzle: which side of this picture is US and which is Mexico?


Despite a huge number of people trying to get across the Rio Grande into the US, someone actually runs river cruises on it - right along the international boundary:


Here is one more look at Mexico:


Other sights in South Texas: this is an old aircraft carrier being taken apart at Port Isabel. Right after I took this picture, a truck pulled out from the shipyard, stopped by our car, and a guy leaned out of it and told me to surrender my camera. I made a few wimpy sounds, before the guy said "I am just messing with you, buddy." :)


Another funky sight - miles and miles of onion fields along the roads:


And now for some more conventional impressions:

Rio Grande birds

If you were a bird, and you were traveling from Canada south towards Cancun (doesn't everyone go to Cancun in the spring?), for most of your trip your companions will be familiar characters: cardinals, bluejays, and red-tailed hawks. But once you cross the Texas border and drop beyond a certain latitude, everything changes. You will meet locals called kiskadee, caracara, and chachalaca. Jays will be neon green, and flycatchers bright scarlet. And doves will looks like they've gone through a washing machine.

But of course the first exotic that you will meet will be the famous Roadrunner:


These birds below are Crested Caracaras. A caracara is vulture falcon: it comes from the falcon family, but feeds mainly on carrion:




Check out the orange neck bulge on this caracara. I am not sure, but I think it's a mating display:


The next strangeness is a sort of a Mexican chicken called Plain Chachalaca. (And yes, if you are wondering, there are other, non-plain chachalacas out there.)




A Kiskadee is a big yellow flycatcher, a southern version of a kingbird:






This is an Altamira Oriole:




These two are Inca Doves. Check out their scaled feathers:


We've seen this chicken before! This is a Common Moorhen:


An Orange-Crowned warbler contemplating its lunch:


And this scraggy creature is a Reddish Egret:

South Texas impressions

Green Jays:

South African turtle. What's a South African turtle doing in Texas? I am sure it's asking itself the same question. (It's in an enclosure on the premises of a National Butterfly Center. What's a turtle doing in a butterfly center? I am sure it's asking itself the same question.)


A really self-important Brewer's Blackbird.




The next three pictures capture just a part of an amazing series of events. An anhinga (a type of cormorant) caught a fish and brought it to its roosting place to munch on. But it couldn't slip the fish off its bill, so it started shaking its head to get it off - which is where I stopped taking pictures. But right after that, the fish flew off the bill, into the water, and swam away! The anhinga dove right after it, but it was too late...