The sun is setting on the lake and thousands of cranes perform a mating dance, bobbing their black and white heads while flapping large grey wings and hopping on long legs.
Like every winter, the red-crowned Eurasian birds are back on Israel's Hula Lake - some for a stop-over en route from Russia, Finland and Estonia to Ethiopia's Lake Tana, and others here for the entire cold season.
This year, however, some of the 100,000 cranes flew in a little late, with global warming a possible reason for the delay.
Bird migration is like nature's clock, said Yaron Charka, chief ornithologist for the Jewish National Fund, the organization that runs the site which sees the migration of half a billion birds a year.
With Israel beginning to emerge from its second national coronavirus lockdown last month, nature-lovers are also flocking to the park.
(Reuters)