Hummingbirds Roasted in Olive Oil

On friday Lev and I walked back from the Y after daycare. It was the last day of Eid al-fitr (apologies for the spelling). There were Arab families out having pic-nics in Gan haPamon by the lion fountain. One guy was up a ladder picking olives. Lev and I stopped and watched for a bit. After a while I asked him if he would mind if Lev helped pick up olives and put them in the bucket. He and his family live in Bet Safafa , he said (Bet Safafa is an Arab town adjacent to Jerusalem or I guess better to say an Arab neighbourhood) and every year he comes and picks at that spot. I saw he had a huge bag already and I asked him how long it had taken to pick. He said an hour. I was amazed. He said he pickeles a bunch and grinds the rest for oil and is set for the year, then he sells whatever he has left over. Anyway, we hung out with him and his kids. They gave me coffee and Lev some water and cookies and bamba and would happily have served us lunch but we were off to meet Ariela and Benjy.
Someone told me that he thought that often the olive trees on public land were either on land originally belonging to a particular Arab family who retained the right to harvest those trees or else were given the right in exchange for trees on land which was expropriated, so this might have been a family holding in the middle of Jerusalem. I don't know if this is true. If anybody can enlighten me please do. It makes sense, though. Olive trees take many, many years to bear fruit and are very long lived so you can see places all around Jerusalem where roads and houses have been built around old trees. It is kind of neat to see people involved in an urban harvest and nice to see that the olives don't go to waste.

Did you know that hummingbirds are a New World species of bird? I learned this and other bird facts at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory today. If that is the case, then I am not sure but I think we kosher folk could chow down on hummingbird. How many would you have to eat in order to get a good meal? I am a vegetarian, what do I know? The fact is though that (and again check with your local rabbi before going crazy on the hummingbirds) birds which weren't known in the time of the Bible and hence weren't forbidden along with the non-kosher birds (storks, cranes, eagles, ospreys etc.) are generally regarded as kosher (ie. the beloved turkey). Still, kosher slaughtering of a hummingbird could prove difficult.
But the hummingbirds are there in the new world and I am here in the old world. I can however enjoy he JBO. It is a blast. It is very weird because it is directly adjacent to the Kenesset, Israel's parliament. I mean right next door. You have the huge and intimidating fence with the guys schlepping m-16s and the manicured lawns and you go around the corner and all of a sudden you are in the middle of a little patch of terraced wilderness which is four dunams (whatever a dunam is). Then past the observatory is the Givat Ram cemetary. The sounds of the city and its epic building boom are there in the background but muted by the fir trees. You can poke around at the observatory until Amir or Ellen, the two professional staff people or one of the volunteers, spot you and say hi. Then they take you around and talk about their passion, the birds of Israel.
If you are with Amir he will have his dog with him. If it seems weird to have a dog in a bird-watching station consider that Jerusalem is a city with a serious cat issue. People leave food out for strays which is weird because the cats seem to be doing fine eating from the garbage cans which are usually open. Anyway hundreds of cats on every block. If they knew there was a spot where people were luring birds with sweetened water and suet, they would probably set out plates and silverware. I enjoyed watching his dog -- who preferred not to give his name -- chasing a cat up a tree. Amir was going around taking down the "mist" netting they use to catch birds for ringing when I was visiting but I only got to see one little bird which he said was a nightingale and was already ringed get released.
I didn't get to see the hoopoe or duchifat which is Israel's recently elected national bird. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.