Waymark
Trek Upper Galilee — Hula Valley, Israel

Agamon Hula — The Cranes of the Hula Valley

A flat circuit of the restored lake in the Hula Valley, one of the great bottlenecks of the Europe–Africa flyway, where tens of thousands of common cranes spend the winter within metres of a covered hide.

Agamon Hula — The Cranes of the Hula Valley
Photo: Jotpe · CC BY-SA 4.0
Duration
1 day
Distance
8.5 km
Walking time (est.)
2 h 15 min
Ascent
20 m
Difficulty
Easy
Best season
November–March for the crane spectacle, when tens of thousands of common cranes winter on the lake; the birds thin out from late February as they head north, and by summer the show is over

Walking

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     Packing list

    Getting there and back

    Start
    Agamon Hula visitor centre
    Finish
    Agamon Hula visitor centre

    Loop: you finish where you started

    Directions to the start More on getting there

    Season events near this route

    The Hula Valley sits in the Syrian–African rift, the funnel through which birds moving between Europe, Asia and Africa are squeezed twice a year. An estimated 500 million migrating birds pass through the valley annually. There is nowhere else in Israel where the scale of migration is so plainly visible from a flat gravel path.

    A lake drained, and partly given back. Lake Hula and its malarial marshes were drained between 1951 and 1958 — the Jordan deepened, canals cut, the peat opened to the air. It is remembered as one of the country’s founding engineering feats and, later, as one of its costliest ecological mistakes: the peat oxidised and burned, dust storms rose, nutrients washed down into the Sea of Galilee, and an endemic species, the Hula painted frog, was written off as extinct. A small reserve was set aside in 1963, and in the 1990s a further parcel was deliberately re-flooded. That reconstructed lake — about one square kilometre, with islands built for nesting — is the Agamon Hula. It is not the old Lake Hula. It is a fragment, engineered, and it works: the painted frog turned up again in 2011, alive.

    The cranes are seasonal — autumn and winter only. This is the point of the visit and the thing to get right. Common cranes arrive from November, and tens of thousands winter here rather than continuing to Africa; counts run to some 30,000–40,000 birds on a good day. From late November to late March the fields are fed with several tonnes of maize daily, a deal struck to keep the birds off the farmers’ crops — and it is that feeding operation that holds the flocks in view. From late February they begin drifting north. Come in June and you will walk a pretty lake with no cranes on it.

    Getting there. The Agamon Hula lies off Route 90 in the Upper Galilee, between Rosh Pina and Kiryat Shmona. Entry is ticketed. Walk the circuit, rent a bicycle or a golf cart, or ride the tractor-drawn wagon, which the cranes ignore because it looks like the machine that feeds them.

    Good to know:

    Tips & Insights for this route Planning this route? Read our practical tips before you go — 8 tips. Read the tips

    Day by day

    DayDistanceAscentDescentWalking time (est.)
    Day 1 Hardest dayThe circuit of the Agamon
    Distance8.5 kmAscent20 mDescentNot recordedWalking time (est.)2 h 15 min

    Flights on Kayak Car rental on Localrent Travel eSIM on Airalo

    Day 1

    The circuit of the Agamon

    Agamon Hula visitor centre → Agamon Hula visitor centre 8.5 km 20 m 2 h 15 min
    Navigate this day

    An easy gravel circuit from the visitor centre out along the open water, past the feeding fields where the cranes gather, into the covered hides, and back through the restored marsh.

    Water and food

    No drinking water or food found near this day’s stops. Carry what you need for the whole day.

    Places mapped by volunteers on OpenStreetMap; opening times and taps change, so check before relying on one. © OpenStreetMap contributors

    Segments

    1. Out to the water 2 km 5 m Map

      Visitor centre → Northern shore

      Flat gravel path

      A level path leads out of the visitor centre through reed beds and eucalyptus to the open water. Herons, pelicans, egrets and cormorants work the shallows; the Naftali ridge stands to the west and Mount Hermon closes the valley to the north. About 45 minutes.

    2. The flyway and the islands 2.5 km 5 m Map

      Northern shore → Eastern shore

      Lakeside track

      The path runs the shore of the reconstructed lake — about a square kilometre of water with islands built deliberately for nesting. This valley is a bottleneck of the great Europe–Africa flyway, and an estimated 500 million birds cross it each year: raptors, storks, waterfowl, passerines, moving on a schedule older than the border. About 45 minutes.

    3. The feeding fields and the cranes
      The feeding fields and the cranes 2 km 5 m Map

      Eastern shore → Crane fields

      Field track

      In winter this is the centre of it. Tens of thousands of common cranes gather on the fed fields — some 30,000–40,000 on a good day, birds that would once have carried on to Sudan and Ethiopia and now simply stay. From late November to late March a tractor delivers several tonnes of maize daily, a bargain that keeps them off the surrounding crops. Empty in summer. About 1 hour.

      About this place

      The common crane, also known as the Eurasian crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. A medium-sized species, it is the only crane commonly found in Europe besides the demoiselle crane and the Siberian crane that only are regular in the far eastern part of the continent. Along with the sandhill crane, demoiselle crane and the brolga, it is one of only four crane species not currently classified as threatened with extinction or conservation dependent on the species level. Despite the species' large numbers, local extinctions and extirpations have taken place in part of its range, and an ongoing reintroduction project is underway in the United Kingdom.

      Read more on Wikipedia Photo: Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5
    4. The covered hides
      The covered hides 1 km 0 m Map

      Crane fields → Southern hides

      Boardwalk to screened hides

      Screened wooden hides let you sit within metres of birds that would flush from an open path. Sit still, stay quiet, and watch the flocks come in at dusk — thousands of cranes dropping onto the water at once, calling the whole way down. The best half-hour of the day. About 45 minutes.

      About this place

      The common crane, also known as the Eurasian crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. A medium-sized species, it is the only crane commonly found in Europe besides the demoiselle crane and the Siberian crane that only are regular in the far eastern part of the continent. Along with the sandhill crane, demoiselle crane and the brolga, it is one of only four crane species not currently classified as threatened with extinction or conservation dependent on the species level. Despite the species' large numbers, local extinctions and extirpations have taken place in part of its range, and an ongoing reintroduction project is underway in the United Kingdom.

      Read more on Wikipedia Photo: Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5
    5. The restored marsh and back
      The restored marsh and back 1 km 5 m Map

      Southern hides → Visitor centre

      Boardwalk and gravel path

      Close the loop through the re-flooded marsh — papyrus, reed and open peat, a deliberate patch of the wetland that the drainage of the 1950s erased. Somewhere in here lives the Hula painted frog, declared extinct in 1996 and rediscovered in 2011: the reason this fragment matters. About 30 minutes.

      About this place

      The Hula painted frog is a species of frog endemic to the Lake Hula marshes in northern Israel. It is the only living member of the genus Latonia, which is otherwise known from fossils from Europe spanning from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene. The Hula painted frog was thought to be extinct as a result of habitat destruction during the 1950s until the species was rediscovered in 2011.

      Read more on Wikipedia Photo: עוזי פז · CC BY 2.5

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    Tips & Insights

    Packing list

    Filled in for this route from the kit a walk like this needs and the gear its tips mention. Tick things off as you pack.

    Clothing and footwear
    Gear
    Health and sun
    Water and food

    Getting there

    • Agamon Hula and the Hula Nature Reserve are two different places

      The reconstructed lake with the crane flocks, the feeding fields and the safari wagon is the Agamon Hula, run by KKL-JNF. The Hula Nature Reserve a few kilometres south is a separate Nature and Parks Authority site with its own gate, its own ticket and a floating boardwalk over the papyrus. Both are worth doing and they are not interchangeable — navigation apps will cheerfully send you to the wrong one, so check the name on your booking against the name on the sign.

    • Walk it, cycle it, or ride — 8.5 km is longer than it looks in the cold

      The circuit is flat gravel, but at birdwatching pace with stops it is a three-to-four hour walk, most of it exposed. Bicycles and golf carts rent at the visitor centre and let you reach the far side of the lake and still be back at the hides for the dusk return. Choose by how long you want to be standing outside in a winter wind, not by the distance on the map.

    Best time to go

    • The cranes are a November-to-March show, and they thin out early

      Common cranes arrive from November and tens of thousands winter here instead of continuing to Africa — counts run to tens of thousands on a good day. What holds them in view is a deliberate feeding operation: several tonnes of maize a day scattered on the fields from late November to late March, a deal struck to keep the birds off the farmers’ crops. From late February they start drifting north. Come in June and you will walk a pretty lake with no cranes on it.

    Local insights

    • Dawn and dusk are the whole point

      The flocks lift off the water at first light and come back in at dusk, thousands at a time, and you hear them well before you see them. The middle of the day is the quiet part — birds spread out across the fields, nothing happening in the sky. If you only get one visit, make it the first hour of daylight and accept the early alarm; the difference between that hour and eleven in the morning is the difference between the trip you came for and a nice walk.

    • Bring binoculars, and do not only look at the cranes

      The Hula Valley is the pinch point of the Europe–Africa flyway, with an estimated 500 million birds crossing it each year, so the same flat gravel loop turns up pelicans, storks, raptors, herons, egrets and waterfowl alongside the headline act. The hides bring you close, but the water is wide and the far shore is where the unusual things sit. Binoculars stop being optional the moment you are inside a hide.

    • The lake you are walking around is an apology

      Lake Hula and its marshes were drained in the 1950s as a founding feat of engineering; then the exposed peat oxidised and burned, dust storms rose, nutrients washed down into the Sea of Galilee, and the endemic Hula painted frog was written off as extinct. Part of the valley was deliberately re-flooded in the 1990s, and in 2011 the frog turned up alive. It is a fragment, it is engineered, and it works — which changes what the walk feels like once you know it.

    Tickets & reservations

    • Book the wagon — it does not run without reservations

      The tractor-drawn safari wagon works because the cranes ignore it: it looks like the machine that feeds them, so it drives into the middle of the flock. It needs advance booking, only runs when it has a minimum number of passengers, and leaves on time — arrive a quarter of an hour early, because it will not wait. The sunrise version, around an hour and a half, is the one that puts you inside the flock at lift-off.

    Gear & packing

    • Dress for standing still in an open valley in winter

      The circuit is flat and easy, which fools people. Crane season is Israeli winter in an exposed valley below the Naftali ridge: cold, often wet, and windy, and you will be stationary for long stretches at hides and on an open wagon rather than generating any heat by walking. Layers, a windproof shell and gloves are the difference between watching for an hour and giving up after five minutes.

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