Some Things Never Change

It’s not just me. Studying the latest news on local web sites it is clear that most birders are struggling with the weather in being able to get outdoors for even a spot of birding, never mind ringing.  Apologies for the lack of posts in recent days and for the next week or so as Storm Debi is the latest Atlantic arrival to batter our lives. 

I raided the archives and found memories of warmer, drier days gone by in The Middle East and Egypt where politics and/or religion are often a cause of trouble.

After arriving in Egypt to tanks on street corners the holiday was uneventful but totally relaxing. Late on Friday November 8 2011 we arrived in Manchester safe and sound from Hurghada and The Red Sea, many miles from the shock waves still emanating from Cairo and other Egyptian cities. 

Sue and I had healthy tans from a wonderful holiday, and after two weeks of unbroken 28 degrees, together with staving off Pharaoh’s Revenge, we felt pretty relaxed about Egypt. Most other Europeans went home with tails between their legs at the first sign of trouble, and left mainly German and UK nationals remaining. By our second week, the early mornings saw a halt to  hostilities in the “Towels on Sunbeds War” and where available sunbeds on our deserted beach easily outnumbered potential occupants by five to one.

These unexpected plusses neatly allowed me to head off for a little local birding in the by now extremely quiet but lush, well-watered, green resort of Makadi Bay where Bougainvillea clad buildings greet at every turn. I quickly established a couple of miles local patch that comprised boating wharfs, the beach and numerous garden areas of the many four and five star hotels. 

The locals tell you that Egypt is 95% sand, where the Red Sea resorts are built on strips of land bounded by sandy shores on one side and desert sand on the other, Hurghada being no exception to that rule. That rather limits the birding unless car hire is taken, but that wasn’t on the agenda in strife torn Egypt. I found plenty of birding and photographic opportunities with morning and afternoon forays and gentle strolls around the beautiful bay.

Here is a flavour of the birds I saw in Egypt, and in the next week or two I hope to post more pictures after first catching up with blogging friends everywhere, news from my local patch here in the UK and get in an overdue ringing session.

Common and numerous everywhere in Makadi Bay are Bluethroats, wintering birds from the several races of Europe.

Makadi Bay

Bluethroat

I found lots of ground-hugging Red-throated Pipits skulking about the quiet grassy areas where Cattle Egrets also fed as Kestrels and an Egyptian soldier kept a look-out.

Red-throated Pipit
Red-throated Pipit
Kestrel
Cattle Egret
Bougainvillea
Egyptian Soldier

The beach and the shore held Western Reef Herons and an occasional Striated Heron, crepuscular in their habits.

Sunrise, Makadi Bay
Striated Heron
Western Reef Heron

Stay tuned folks. Storm Debi can't last forever can she?

Another Bird Blog is back soon.

Egypt Matters

When I watched the TV news and read today’s newspaper which described the tumult going on in Egypt it made me both sad and angry.

“The Foreign Office (FCO) issued the advice for the resort of Hurghada, where violent clashes erupted earlier in the week in an area away from the main tourist section. The FCO advised that in Hurghada on August 14 there were some violent clashes, in an area away from tourist resorts. One man was killed. Hurghada police advised tourists to remain in hotel grounds, avoid all demonstrations and large gatherings and if becoming aware of any nearby protests, to leave the area immediately and to not attempt to cross road blocks erected by the security forces or protesters.” 

Sue and I enjoyed a wonderful winter holiday in the Hurghada resort in January 2011 and it grieves me to think of those poor, hard-working and proud Egyptian people suffering such turmoil. 

It’s raining hard here in the UK, so I put together some pictures from Hurghada 2011. Apologies to any readers seeing a few of these pictures again but to anyone who didn't find them until now, I hope that after seeing them you will agree that Egypt should be on any birder's or photographer's wish list.

Hopefully Egypt will recover soon from this setback and their tourist industry return to normal.

"Click the pics" for a better view of Egypt.

Hurghada Hotel

Western Reef Heron

Red-throated Pipit

Common Kingfisher

Bluethroat 

Common Kestrel

Sleepy Camel

Egyptian Lizard

Greater Sand Plover

Nile Valley Sunbird

 Striated Heron

 

Osprey

Tourist Police

More soon from Another Bird Blog but not from Egypt just yet.

Appropriately enough I'm linking this post to Anni's I'd Rather Be Birding Blog .

Leftovers

Two weeks later I finally finished going through my pictures from Egypt, so picked out a number that as yet have not performed on the blog. Some of the species have appeared before, but in the absence of any birding on a wet and windy Friday and promised same again for Saturday, the bit of blue sky and memory of warm, sunny Egyptian days may cheer everyone up.

There was a particular Western Reef Heron in Hurghada that hung around the main jetty where the local lads fished with hand lines, but to amuse the tourists fed the heron by hand with freshly caught fish. The creature was so used to being fed it would stalk up and down the jetty in the hope of scrounging a meal. The Striated Herons weren’t so obliging and I would have to seek them out in quiet beach or boat spots in the early morning. In the second week of the holiday when most of the tourists went home, the beach camels took a well-deserved rest, the lizards came out to play and early mornings were the best time for Greenshank and Greater Sand Plover.

Western Reef Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Sleepy Camel
Egyptian Lizard
Greater Sand Plover
Greenshank

There were a small number of very wary Stonechats about the hotel grounds which kept their distance so well I only bothered to get one photograph. I am pretty sure the ones I saw were all European Stonechats, and none of them Siberian Stonechats, although both occur in Egypt. The common crow of the area is Hooded Crow.

Stonechat
Hooded Crow

I suppose the highlight of my photography time was getting the chance to take pictures of a close Osprey, and on a couple of mornings sitting near a Kingfisher, none of which happens too often here in the UK.

Osprey
Kingfisher

Shore Thing, Egypt

I sorted through my Egypt photos and came up with a selection of birds I found on walks along Makadi Bay, strolls that included the beach, shore and a couple of spots where there were boats of all shapes and sizes, all of which makes good shorebird habitat.

I had no preconceptions about anything I might see on the holiday, it was after all mainly a winter holiday to warm through our northern bones, with a bit of birding thrown in if time and circumstances allowed.

One morning while carrying my camera with long lens and taking pictures of a lone Greenshank on the beach, a local lad Mimo shouted after me “paparazzi”, maybe thinking I was taking an unhealthy interest in and pictures of the many bikinied Russian girls lounging on sun beds – as if I would!

Mimo surprised me by being fairly clued up about western birding, even though he had never seen the Kingfisher that perched every day above and next to his camel’s shelter, but asked if I had seen the “big white hawk that lives in the sand”. Alarm bells rang as I realised Ospreys frequented the area, and of course in the Middle East Ospreys do indeed nest on the ground, mainly on remote islands owing to the general lack of trees. I looked harder for the next few days and found the Ospreys as they came in and out of the bay to feed in the shallow waters, often resting and drying out from their plunge dives on top of the Princess Deha that seemed to permanently berth alongside the main jetty. Frustratingly the early morning sun was always behind the boat meaning I had to over expose every shot to get a decent picture, hence the white and not blue sky. Mostly the birds would spend several minutes in the area before heading off north, than intermittently return towards dusk.

Osprey
Osprey
Too Close Osprey
Makadi Bay

Most mornings I saw Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Greater Sand Plover, with an occasional Ringed Plover, but just like the UK, waders here were difficult to approach.

Greenshank
Greater Sand Plover
Greater Sand Plover

The jetty was a good place to find early morning Striated Heron and Western Reef Heron, both species being quite common along the Red Sea coast. A Western Reef Heron is the same size as Little Egret and superficially the two species might be confused, but the Reef Heron has a stouter bill with a slightly curved culmen and as a whole the species is a little less elegant than Little Egret. Striated Heron is a small, rather skulking heron, most active at dawn and dusk, but one or two days I found single birds on the beach or roosting on boats or the jetty.

Western Reef Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Western Reef Heron

Rather strangely in view of the abundance of fish, literally teeming along the tideline and abundant offshore, gulls and terns were scarce, whereby I saw daily Caspian Terns, several overflying Baltic Gulls, but in two weeks of looking, just a single Slender-billed Gull.

And the shot below is the best I got of a Caspian Tern, all of whom kept their silent distance from me for two weeks.

Caspian Tern
Jellyfish

That’s it for now until I’ve sorted the Kingfisher and Slender-billed Gull pictures, but I also have a series of Chiffchaff pictures plus a spot of some nectarivory, which has absolutely nothing to do with Russian girls.

The Other Face of Egypt

Late on Friday we got back safe and sound from Hurghada and The Red Sea, many miles from the shock waves emanating from Cairo and other large Egyptian cities. We acquired great tans from a wonderful holiday, and after two weeks of unbroken warm sunshine at 28 degrees, together with staving off Pharaoh’s Revenge, we felt pretty relaxed about Egypt. Because most other Europeans went home tails between their legs at the first sign of trouble, with mainly German and UK nationals remaining by our second week, the early mornings saw a cessation of hostilities in the “Towels on Sunbeds War”, when the available beds on the deserted beach easily outnumbered potential occupants by five to one.

These unexpected plusses neatly allowed me to head off for a little local birding in the by now extremely quiet but lush, well-watered, green resort of Makadi Bay where Bougainvillea clad buildings greet at every turn. I quickly established a couple of miles local patch that comprised boating wharfs, the beach and numerous garden areas of the many four and five star hotels. The locals tell you that Egypt is 95% sand, where the Red Sea resorts are built on strips of land bounded by sandy shores on one side and desert sand on the other, Hurghada being no exception to that rule. That rather limits the birding unless car hire is taken, but that wasn’t on a couple’s agenda and I found plenty of birding and photographic opportunities with morning and afternoon forays.

Today’s topic is a flavour of the birds I saw in Egypt, and in the next week or two I hope to post more pictures after first catching up with blogging friends everywhere, news from my local patch here in the UK and get in an overdue ringing session.

Common and numerous everywhere in Makadi Bay are Bluethroats, wintering birds from the several races of Europe.

Bluethroat

I found lots of ground-hugging Red-throated Pipits skulking about the quiet grassy areas where Cattle Egrets also fed as Kestrels and an Egyptian soldier kept a look-out.

Red-throated Pipit
Red-throated Pipit
Kestrel
Cattle Egret
Bougainvillea
Egyptian Soldier

The beach and the shore held Western Reef Herons and an occasional Striated Heron, crepuscular in their habits.

Sunrise, Makadi Bay
Striated Heron
Western Reef Heron

More soon, but doesn’t Egypt look a lot better than those television scenes from Cairo?