Birds and animals at Ein Hod, Israel

We are finally back from our month long vacation in Ein Hod, the artist's village near Haifa, in Israel. It was a wonderful vacation and I am still tired and have not completely adjusted to the time zone. Meanwhile, I took around 600 photos so I have organized a few to show here.  The birds were not terribly cooparative as far as my photography skills went, but I got a few photos. I wasn't quick enough to photograph the lizards I saw, but did manage to photograph one snake.

The cats walk around like they own the place. They are not really pets. Someone does feed them and make sure that they get neutered, but basically they are in the village to keep down the population of scorpions and snakes. We didn't see any scorpions there, but I checked our shoes every day before putting them on. The dogs also wander and are very friendly and well behaved. It is pretty safe in the village for them since the only car traffic is from the people who live there (there is a gate to come into the village, also a visitor's parking area outside the village for everyone else). I think the village has about 500-800 people living in it. To buy a home or apartment there, you have to be juried in as an artist or photographer.

The cats wandered around the back yard and patio

 I'm not sure why this mirror was in the alley, but the birds didn't seem happy with it.

 The bamboo grows very tall there. I watched this bird and enjoyed his singing.

 Ceramics from the Magal studio in Ein Hod. I bought a few small things there.

 The small doves seemed very similar to the ones we have at home.

 The little dog across from our apartment finally got used to us walking and stopped barking at us every time we walked by.  He looked like he is guarding the whole neighborhood in this photo.

 These two dogs barked at me as I walked by on the street. They were quite loud, but did not come out on the street. Other dogs I saw on my walks were friendly.

 This dove on the next rooftop was quite large, larger than the ones I see here. It was also very loud and had a different song than I am used to.

 A pretty calico cat was watching us as we sat in the cafe and had some coffee and snacks.

 Several people had chickens in the village. I also heard peacocks and roosters, but I did not get a picture of them.

 The cats came right up on the patio. We noticed that they liked to drink the water from the drain pipe after the rain.

 One of my favorite statues. There were so many it was hard to decide which ones I liked the best, but I like dogs so I took several photos of this statue.

This photo was taken at the Dado Beach near Haifa. Our friend took us there on our last evening so we could get some photos of the sea and the sunset. The village has warm and friendly people and almost everyone spoke some English. Now we are back to winter in New Hampshire, with cold temperatures and snow.  Next week I'll try to organize some of my flower paintings and put them up. I loved all the bright colors and pretty flowers (and so much green!) in Ein Hod in March.