When the Hula Valley Becomes an Avian Superhighway

To the delight of ornithologists, amateur bird watchers, photographers, and nature lovers, the annual spring bird migration from Central Africa to Europe and Asia is now underway. The best places to observe the avian wonder are Israel’s Hula Nature Reserve and the nearby Agamon Hula Park, both close to the Galilee Panhandle city of Kiryat Shmona. The twin sites, of global importance for aquatic fowl, are the Middle East’s most critical wetland.

“Some half a billion birds pass through our country out of about 11 billion migratory birds worldwide, twice each year, in autumn and spring. That makes us a true migration superpower,” said Dotan Rotem, an openlands ecologist at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

While the eye-popping wonder is best observed in the spring and fall, tens of thousands of birds have today altered their migratory pattern — and now winter in the Hula Valley. Out of a population of 75,000 cranes, which used to commute between Europe and their wintering grounds in Ethiopia, 25,000 now spend December to March in northern Israel.

The best time to see the wonder? Sunrise — when the early bird catches the worm. Migrating birds winging it along the 7,000 mile-long Great Rift Valley — the longest and deepest rift valley in the world — include pelicans, egrets, ibises, swallows, storks, eagles, falcons, cranes, mallards, cormorants, herons, sparrows, common redshanks, and warblers. They are present in inconceivable numbers. More than 200 species of waterfowl alone flock to the two reserves.

Then there are the water buffalo, wild cats, and beavers swimming blithely hither and thither in the marshes. Not to mention the fish and water plants. It’s to the skies, however, that one must look to appreciate Israel’s wildlife: to the delight of birdwatchers, the tiny country is a feathered superpower.

Israel owes its remarkable avian diversity to geography: flying thousands of miles over many weeks, the migrating birds must stop to rest. To the east, the Syrian Desert offers little food or water; to the west, the Mediterranean Sea has few islands on which to land. The Hula Valley in Israel’s north offers the perfect environment of fertile land, fresh water, and bird feed.

The peak times to visit the Hula Valley are October through December, and then March through April. The birds begin returning north from Africa in late February.

If one can only visit one of the two sister sites, this writer recommends the Agamon Hula. Its impressive Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitors and Education Center, named for former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was inaugurated in 2019. The reserve includes a five-mile-long trail for viewing the feeding grounds. Bicycles and electric golf carts are available.

Apart from the Hula Valley, Israel offers bird lovers a series of bird watching sites stretching along the north-south migration route. These include the Beit Shean Valley’s Kfar Ruppin, Neve Eitan, Maoz Hayim, and Tirat Zevi. All of these locations have major concentrations of fishponds — in other words, lunch for raptors.

Further to the south in the Arava Desert, the birding center at Kibbutz Lotan is also notable. One only needs to look up to see the sky full of eagles, storks, or pelicans. At Ein Evrona, just north of Eilat, a flock of flamingoes are tickled pink to no longer migrate between Turkey and Africa, having found lots of food at the local saltwater fishponds.

The most important of Israel’s several bird research centers is Tel Aviv University’s International Center for the Study of Bird Migration at Latrun. The center uses cameras, radar, and satellites to track the flocks, and updates the birds’ movements. That data is invaluable for minimizing potentially deadly encounters between birds and airplanes.

The Agamon Hula Reserve is relatively new. Lake Agmon was only created in 1998 — a tiny slice of the ancient wetland and swamp that once existed here — and the park opened five years later. It’s an extraordinary success story born out of a vast environmental mistake.

When Israel was created in 1948, the Hula Valley included a 15,000-acre shallow lake and seasonal marshland full of Encephalitis mosquitoes carrying malaria and other diseases. Lacking environmental awareness, one of the fledgling country’s first decisions was to drain the swamp and create arable land. It was the stuff of legends. Songs were sung about how the heroic pioneers conquered the Hula Valley and turned it into farmland.

The ecological damage was devastating. For the millions of birds who fly the route twice annually, their vital way station to stop, feed, and rest on the long and exhausting journey all but disappeared. Though the government set aside 800 acres of the original marsh as a nature reserve in 1964 — the first in Israel — it just wasn’t enough space.

Flora and fauna became extinct. Organic matter previously filtered by the wetland began contaminating the freshwater Sea of Galilee, a.k.a., Lake Kinneret — Israel’s main natural reservoir. In addition, the region’s peat lands began to subside alarmingly. Once ignited by a brush fire, the peat burned almost endlessly, resulting in air pollution and further environmental degradation.

“In terms of ecology, it was a disaster,” Omri Bonneh, director of KKL-JNF Northern Region, and head of tourist management at Lake Agmon, admitted. “It was part of a general trend worldwide to drain marshland at that time, but no one could understand the negative impact it had on the environment,” he told ISRAEL21c.

By the 1990s, it was clear something had to be done, and fast. Ironically it was KKL-JNF that came to the rescue. Originally in charge of draining the marsh, in the 1990s, the non-governmental organization was handed the task of reviving it.

A parcel of 1,500 acres of marginal agricultural land in the midst of the desiccated marsh was chosen to become an ecological park, and out of this a 100-acre lake was formed. Farmers surrendered their land on the promise that they would share in the new park’s revenues. Today, more than 400,000 tourists visit the reserve annually.

“It’s become a very important stop site along the rift valley,” says Bonneh. “It’s a kind of bottleneck where birds concentrate and that’s why it’s such a wonderful place to observe so many different species of birds. Any visitor to Hula Valley becomes a bird lover. You can’t visit without being deeply affected.”

So many birds, however, inevitably caused problems for the local farmers who found their field crops of chickpeas and peanuts under attack from the flocks of ravenous cranes.

The KKL-JNF stepped in with a program, aptly named the Crane Project, designed to satisfy both the cranes and the farmers. Food is put out for the birds in specific locations near the lake, and the birds are encouraged to feed there, while being chased from neighboring crop fields.

It’s become a very important stop site along the rift valley. It’s a kind of bottleneck where birds concentrate and that’s why it’s such a wonderful place to observe so many different species of birds. Any visitor to Hula Valley becomes a bird lover. You can’t visit without being deeply affected.

The scheme now serves as a model elsewhere in Israel and in other countries that suffer similar problems with migrating cranes, including the U.S., which has a large crane population. Their damage to crops is a constant problem, and experts at the Hula Valley collaborate on research activities with the U.S. Forestry Service.

The U.S. is not the only country that Hula collaborates with. Twenty-two states share the Great Rift Valley, from Turkey in the north, to Mozambique in south of the Equator. The goal is to develop at least one similar nature reserve in each of these 22 countries, providing shelter, rest and food for the migrating birds.

“We want to create a network of well-managed sites in every country that will maintain and encourage the whole phenomenon of bird migration,” said Bonneh. “It’s a wonderful means of collaboration between nations. Birds don’t know any borders and because of this, we can connect people from different countries, even enemy countries.

“We believe the Hula Valley will gradually become a more important site for international visitors. The site is still far from its potential,” he said.

“Ah,” rhapsodized Inbar Rabin, Agamon Hula’s chief guide, gazing up at the swirling columns in the air. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

Staring up at the birds, she continued: “The Hula Reserve is a beacon to the whole world,” she says simply. “It shows that if we are creative and flexible, we can live together with nature and find winning solutions.”