Monday, January 28, 2013

Ibex in Israel

When I was planning my pilgrimage to Israel there was a prerequisite for me; I had to spend one day tracking in Ein Gedi park and look for some Ibex. I have always thought that Ibex were majestic creatures. A prime specimen would be a sight to behold. I did not have to wait until then to get to see one as there were some in the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. They were too easy to get pictures of and to be honest would have been a way too cheeky for my ethics to pass them of as ones that I had tracked. Here are some pictures of Ibex in the zoo:                 

Zoo picture one
 
King of the harem, in the zoo.
It takes no skill to realise that the Ibex is basically a type of wild goat. Its genus is that of Capra in the family of Bovidae . It is jsut so impressive to see. If I had to market bodybuilding products, I would use the Ibex as a symbol; not because they are so muscular but because they just stink of testosterone, for a ruminant they are about as masculine as it gets. There are 8 types of Ibex, the ones in Israel were Numidian Ibex, if you want to know what the other ones are, look up wikipediaWikipedia Capra genus. The next one on my list however is the Alpine Ibex. They live well above the tree line in the Alps so that will require a fair bit of climbing. Not sure when I will get around to that but hope to do so in the future. I will get a better camera for that one than the one I used for these pics which is a standard point and shoot with minimal magnification.
Fear me, fear my shadow, in the zoo.
Here are some pics of less impressive ones I managed to get close to in Ein Gedi. It was not that hard and took little stalking skill as I am pretty sure it was rutting time or its equivalent, that is unless these males are horny all the time. When I next get back to Israel I will stay at the Kibbutz at Ein Gedi and spend a few days here following these guys about. I will make it around October as the heat was really hard to take. It was about 36 degrees in October and I would not like to experience it much hotter. Part of the attraction for me is the dry hot places. I find desert habitat to be very beautiful. That is one of the reasons that the film Laurence of Arabia is on my shelf.

Too distracted to worry about my presence, not in zoo, wild ones.

Pic of track of male in above photo.




















These last pics have very small horns but I had a little difficulty in stalking close to these guys to get the shot, they were much more skittish than the others.

Fairly hard to see if they don't move.

Sillouette pic, love the leggings.


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