We are not alone.
Spending a great deal of time standing in a field gives one an opportunity to observe the non-human inhabitants of the Kurdish landscape. We came across an injured fox hiding (and then fleeing) from a vegetable patch when we recently went to visit the site of Sirawa where we worked in 2024. I am pretty sure it was a Kurdish red fox, but I’m no expert. It emerged from the garden and disappeared so quickly despite its injuries I didn’t get a photograph.
The field at Site 292, as you saw in the last post, is pretty barren. There are two plant types that we have been surveying through and over. One is a low thorny bush which I have tentatively identified as (Prosopis farcta) commonly “Syrian mesquite” or . A more common prickly plant that is encountered in Near East surveys is camelthorn, but it doesn’t have the same leaf structure. Rafeeq told me that the mesquite beans are collected for use as medicine by some of the villagers.
Possibly old world mesquite.
Our other botanical friend on site is a pink-flowered field bindweed, which is a relative of the morning glory. They look odd in the harsh summer since the flower appears so delicate, but the plant roots are deep and the seeds viable for years (according to iNaturalist) so it is well adapted to the harsh climate.
Possible field bindweed.
For some time, I’ve been trying to teach myself about birds using an online app and have become somewhat adept at spotting crested larks, Eurasian collared-doves, and red-wattled lapwings on our drives to and from the site. My latest spotting was a western yellow wagtail. While watching my colleague slowly walk up and down 20m survey transects is engaging for the first few hours of the day, there is plenty of time to look around. For geophysical survey we have to be metal-free, so no cell phone photos of the birds either.
Shepherd moving his flock. The goats are in the lead, and sheep follow. Check out those goat ears!
And then there are the domesticates. Frequent visitors include the ubiquitous herds of fat-tailed sheep and long-eared goats, often accompanied by dogs and a shepherd riding a donkey or a horse. Below is a traffic jam on the track to Site 292. All of these species have been here for at least 4,000 years (sheep and goats much longer, with dogs being the oldest domesticate of all). This is entertainment on the Erbil Plain.
On the way home from Site 292.