December 4, 2017

Every year some 500 million birds migrate across Israel in their twice year pilgrimage to and from warmer climes, and this year photographer Chanoch Seif caught them in flight with the backdrop of last night’s supermoon.

The Hula Lake, which was founded by Keren Kayemet Le’Israel-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), has already begun welcoming its migrating visitors for the winter.

Tens of thousands of birds, including pelicans, herons, storks and cranes will arrive in huge flocks this winter during their migration from Europe to Africa, along with birds of prey and other winged species.

KKL-JNF restored the area in the 1990s by creating a 250 acre lake in the Hula Valley that filters the water flowing from the valley to Lake Kinneret and renewed the stream of water in the original Jordan River flow channel.

Since its restoration, Lake Hula has flourished into an internationally acclaimed bird watching park, where no less than 500 million migratory birds pass through the area, twice a year.

The supermoon, on December 3, is the first of three back-to-back supermoon full moons to come in the next two months. The next two supermoons will occur on January 1, and January 31, and NASA is billing them a supermoon trilogy. The January 31 supermoon is also the second full moon of January, making it a Blue Moon, and also occurs during a total lunar eclipse.

More on supermoon