 Today is a typical rainy winter's Friday in Jerusalem, but we're going out to do some birdspotting today. They figured I need a few new hobbies. We went to the airport last week to Ben-Gurion to watch some airplanes. So today we're going birdspotting. Frankly, there's two great birdspotting venues in Jerusalem. One of them is the bird observatory in Rose Garden, which is by the Knesset, which is really really nice. They have a whole like bird deck over there. But where we're going today because it's a little bit closer and it's such a rainy day we don't want to travel far is Gazelle Valley, which I've been to before. You can see Gazelle's roaming there. It's really really cool. So we're on our way there now and hoping to catch some some Jerusalem birds. What this is is a basically open patch of land wildlife reserve of about 64 acres, 250 Dunham's. Now for those who haven't heard of Dunham's it's actually it's a Turkish word and it's it's Turkish word because Israel was actually part of the Ottoman Empire for a stretch of about 400 years and therefore you'll see words in Israeli use that are actually hangovers from the time that Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire. It works out to about 64 acres. Now this patch of land here is called Gazelle Valley because there's a herd of about 65 different Gazelles who just roam here freely. The amazing thing is you don't really need a big telephoto camera lens or any kind of special gear to find them. We just walked in here and there was like three or four of them crossing the road right in front of us. And they're not super timid. They're not like, you know, that afraid of humans. So, you know, don't get up right next to them, but you can definitely approach them. I have here today my new copy of the Collins bird guide, which I understand is considered the authority on bird spotting matters. So I figured this would be an interesting new hobby through shooting videos with my video camcorder. I must admit, I'm kind of getting fascinated by wildlife. So this place, it's at 50, 64 acres, 250 dunams in the Givat Mordechai neighborhood of Jerusalem. You can see here the Gazelles and it's all laid out really nicely and even on a sort of damp gray day like this on a Friday. This is a cool place to come. So let's see if I can get any interesting shots of Gazelles and other birds and other delights of nature in this cool park in Jerusalem. So like any shared space in Jerusalem, you do find a lot of different groups using this space. I'm recording this video here on a Friday, a few hours before Shabbat. So you see a lot of religious families. I try not to use the term ultra orthodox or hardy because I think it's kind of a little bit stigmatizing. But you see a lot of religious families of all different denominations enjoying the wildlife here because this is such a to so much nature here. You see a lot of really serious photographers with their big telephoto lenses. You see some people just like sitting on a bench, maybe, I don't know, contemplating thinking through their issues. It's really kind of wholesome here. And you can definitely, even though this is a Friday, probably one of the busier times. It's actually not super busy and it's even less busy generally during the week. I just want to say as well that this park was sort of, as I mentioned at the start of this video, kind of a civic success. The people wanted this to exist as a space for wildlife and for people to enjoy wildlife, but it's not the only park or open space in the situation in Jerusalem. There's a very beautiful hill called among locals, Givat Tartouro Mesim, the Lupine Hill Flower Hill, located over in Armona Natsiv. That's also currently being threatened by development as far as I know in their pressure groups like they were here resisting training every little bit of Jerusalem into concrete. I think the thing about Jerusalem is it's a very, very significant city for many groups, but especially for Jews. There's a very urgent need for housing in Jerusalem for people living in the city. A lot of the housing stock currently in the city is luxury housing, which is only occupied for a percentage of the year by typically people based who are overseas. The city of Jerusalem has looked to enforcing punitive taxes to kind of discourage that sort of development. Anyway, all this to say that there's definitely this push and take going on in Jerusalem by which we need more housing, but we don't want in the process of developing the city to swallow up all the beautiful amenities. And I think that the success of Gazelle Valley and having this kind of respite that local people can not leave the city, but enjoy some peace and quiet, proves how important spaces like these are for a healthy, thriving and functioning city. If you spent any time touring around Israel and you recognize the type of Gazelles here is mountain Gazelles, those amazing creatures you see seemingly defying gravity on the edge of the hills and around Mitzparamon and in the Ramon crater, you'd be correct. So how did mountain Gazelles end up in Jerusalem in what is actually the biggest, by the way, urban park in the country? It's an interesting story. So all the way this way in front of me, looking west, I mentioned at the start of this video that this park is located on the western expanses of the city of Jerusalem. So in 1993, the Jerusalem planning authorities decided to build a highway further west beyond these tall buildings, the concrete, Holy Land, Malcha, all that is a really, really lovely area called the Jerusalem Hills, the same area that was ravaged by forest fires last year. Now, these Gazelles were migrating freely, nomadically, if you will, between the Jerusalem Hills and this part of Jerusalem that at the time was underdeveloped or underdeveloped or less developed than it is today, let's say. In 1993, the Jerusalem authorities decided to build a highway in this area in order to improve the outbound connectivity westward toward Tel Aviv. Now, the thing was there was at the time already a family of 35 Gazelles or so living in this little park. And when the highway was built, it effectively cut themselves off between the Jerusalem Hills and this area. So solution had to be found. That is the genesis of the urban activism. The Jerusalem municipality wanted to develop also this area with houses. But obviously, a solution had to be found for the 55 beautiful wild animals already living in this area. And now, as I mentioned, it's the biggest urban park in the whole of Israel and it's home to, at this point in time, about 60 different Gazelles as well as many plants. They've tried to reintroduce some plants into this area as well as a bird. So a whole abundance of wildlife in this little wedge of urban Jerusalem.