This last weekend, a bunch of radio producers piled into a small silver Mazda and drove off to the hills outside Nestsiona.

The star of the ride was three-year-old Eliana, the daughter of Yochai Meital, our senior producer.

But the person who brought us on the trip was reporter Daniel Estrin. You'll be hearing from him in just a moment.

We were off to do some field reporting,

like actual field reporting, in search of Israel's national flower, the colonite, or anemone.

I checked this site this morning and there's a fresh report on anemones.

Which is exciting because it's like actually a little early for them, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, these are like the very first anemones that are blooming.

Every winter, tens of thousands of Israelis do exactly what we were doing.

Go out to the country to see carpets of floppy red anemones at the peak of their bloom.

It's still a bit early in the season, but if you're a die-heart flower fan,

you can go online for live updates on flower sightings around the country.

The sites have breaking news-style tickers and scrolling updates.

That's how Daniel heard about these ones.

Anyway, we arrived, took a few steps, and immediately began

spotting little red flowers. Eliana was very excited.

Wow, these are gorgeous. They're just...

This one is beautiful.

It's quite a bit of Kournayat here, actually.

We weren't alone.

One woman with a big, fancy camera was taking close-up shots of the Red Beauties.

A few people, I kid you not, had set up lawn chairs in front of a couple of flowers.

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