They're everywhere. And they're begging to be the main characters in stories about secret feline societies.
Roadside dog
Her name is Luna. She belongs to a food vendor who's stationed in the Judean Desert, en route to the Dead Sea, at the point on the road marked 'sea level.' (You're traveling from the heights of Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, which is the lowest point on Earth - or at least on dry Earth. Reaching sea level is a milestone along the way.)
Luna is used to strangers, and walked over to everyone to get petted and photographed.
Parking lot camel
Here it's chilling out in between giving people rides at a Judean Desert rest stop.
Food court ibex
At the Masada visitors' center, in the outdoor seating area for the food court, an ibex turned up.
It sucked down ice cream on a stick and found a banana peel in the trash.
After a while it got skittish from everyone standing around taking photos and retreated to the stairs.
Fortress bird
At Masada, there are many of these birds - Tristram's starlings. Before looking them up, I thought of them as R2-D2 birds, because they made Star Wars droid noises. (If you hear these noises repeatedly, not just once or twice, that's what it sounds like. At least to me. And the desert landscape could be Tatooine.)
