April 15, 2002

Dear James,

Now that we have gotten settled and I have had time to process the digital photos I took, I wanted to send you some and to thank you for your fine program. Many factors contributed to our wonderful experience, but you deserve special credit for creating and maintaining a place where all these factors are present and can interact. A good example would be our first day at Lotan, when two British birders (I believe their names were Mike and Paul) invited me to walk around with them in the organic gardens. They must have been mildly amused to see my amazement and delight at each and every bird we saw (all of which were entirely new to me) but they were kind, patient, and very knowledgeable. The kibbutz is a wonderful place to bird and my experience was helped further by the excellent set of written materials that were provided to us at our arrival. Hilla in the office and all the people we met went out of their way to be helpful.

Matching us up with Jonathan was particularly felicitous and he provided many wonderful opportunities at a wide range of sites - pleasing me, my wife Carole, and our 21-year-old son Mike. Jonathan realized that photography was one of my main goals and adjusted our plans accordingly on March 14th with excellent results. Most impressive was his taking me, a young Israeli birder (Or-Daniel) and the boy's mother, Heila, with him on his Saturday rounds on March 16. He interacted in a patient way with Or-Daniel that built on the boy's already considerable knowledge and boundless enthusiasm. I'm going to send some of the photos to Or-Daniel and have included a photo of him with Jonathan in those I am sending you. It would be great if you could mention Or-Daniel on your website which would thrill him immensely. The website, by the way, is what brought me to Lotan. It is one of the best birding sites I have seen and I check it regularly to keep up to date.

The photos I have attached, which you are free to use as you see fit, were all taken handheld with a Canon D-30 digital SLR using a Canon 75-300 mm zoom with a 1.4x teleconverter. I have not included photos that are similar to those in your wonderful DIGISCOPING section (I'm starting to try the technique myself with my scope and small digital camera). I included especially some photos of flying birds which you said were difficult with the DIGISCOPING technique. Please let me know if you get the photos and if they need to be sent in another format.

I look forward to our next visit.

David Soskis
dsoskis@earthlink.net

To David Soskis' Spring 2002 Photo Collection >>

Contact info

Daphna Abell
Program Coordinator
lotan-programs@lotan.ardom.co.il
Tel: +972 8 6356935;
Toll Free: 1800 2000 75 (when in Israel)