I believe this is a Tristram’s grackle (onychognathus tristramii), a bird that lives in Ein Gedi, an oasis near the Dead Sea. This bird had no problem letting me photograph him on the picnic table in the visiting area. I have such a harder time getting photos of the birds in my own backyard here in New Jersey!
According to the Wikipedia article,
They are omnivorous, feeding on fruit and invertebrates, and can also be observed grooming Nubian Ibex and domestic livestock for parasites.
Note via email from a Highland Park birder: “It looks very similar to our common grackles except for the bill shape and the bit of color on the wing.”
See my photo of an ibex (yael in Hebrew). Fuzzy, cute hyrax photo coming soon.
Nice colors.
Wikipedia tells me that its French name is: Rufipenne de Tristram!
We have hyrax out where we are.
Enjoying your trip?
ID, I looked up rufipenne, couldn’t find anything. Tristram was the English 1860s naturalist’s name.
Pesky Settler, so sad that it is now over! It was definitely the best vacation of my life. I took almost 1000 pics (aren’t digital cameras great), so I can blog about it for a year or so.
What sort of digital camera do you use?
I have a Canon PowerShot A710. My son’s camera is a Canon PowerShot A700; it was previously mine, but he loves making movies.
Love the little birdie! And how neat he let you get so close to photograph him. In my garden I have to zooooom in to capture the shot of any bird or critter. 😀
Rosie, same in my garden (the need to zooooom to capture the birdie). These birds at Ein Gedi must think of all of us tourists as their buddies. The hyrax and the ibex let us get rather close, too.
The colour on the wing is a beautiful surprise! Lovely.