2008 Tour Narrative
In Brief: After resting this popular tour for the last four years to ensure a smooth-running holiday adapted to the many changes Egypt has undergone, the 2008 re-launch of our Birds and History tour was as successful, happy, and hassle-free as any trip to date.
In Detail: Beginning with Sakkara (the oldest pyramid and the exquisite carvings in the mastabas of Mereruka and Ti), El Fayoun oasis (our only Marsh Sandpiper and our first Little Bitterns), the Egyptian Museum, and the Delta (15 Painted Snipe, 20 White-breasted Kingfishers, Kittlitz’s Plover, Streaked Weaver, Senegal Thick-knee, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, and Woodchat Shrike), we crossed the eastern desert to Suez, encountering a remarkable number of desert specialities: Hoopoe Lark, Desert Lark, Lesser Short-toed Lark, and not only Mourning, Isabelline, Hooded, and Black-eared Wheatears but also a Cyprus Pied Wheatear on passage.
The one target bird still missing, Cream-colored Courser, appeared unexpectedly alongside our coach the next morning on our way to St. Paul’s monastery, where (despite a praying and fasting day that denied us the monastery itself) several migrants awaited us at the entrance—Thrush Nightingale, Marsh Warbler, Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler, Wryneck—plus an all-too-brief pair of Sand Partridges. St. Catherine’s monastery the following day was even more productive, with Sinai Rosefinch, Tristram’s Grackle, Scrub Warbler, and a concentration of migrants in the gardens including Ortolan Bunting, Redstart, and Collared, Semi-collared, and Pied Flycatchers. Nearby Wadi Feran yielded the rest of the Sinai set—Palestine Sunbird, Blackstart, and Yellow-vented Bulbul—plus our first Masked Shrike.
Deeper into the spectacular Sinai wilderness, Wadi Kid produced a second Blackstart (flicking wing and tail like a nervous Wallcreeper), a Persian Wheatear, and our only Cuckoo; equally fascinating were a Nubian Ibex and a large green-and-blue Agama lizard. The mangoes then gave us our first Western Reef Herons (both light and dark morphs) and White-eyed and Sooty Gulls. But for some the most remarkable image from the southern tip of the Sinai was the instant kaleidoscope of tropical fish as we snorkeled from the beach at Ras Mohammed.
Our Sinai experience could have cost us dear in effort and exhaustion when the scheduled catamaran ferry to Hurghada was canceled. Retracing our steps 300 miles across Sinai and then driving another 300 miles along the Red Sea coast was not an appealing option. Neither was a sleepless night of late-night and early-morning flights via Cairo. And so instead we chartered a luxury boat to transport us in comfort—with White-cheeked and Lesser Crested Terns for company—from Asia back to Africa for more snorkeling and Red Sea endemics the next day. The raptor passage at El Gouna was excellent: 10,000 Steppe Buzzards in an hour plus Imperial, Steppe, Booted, Spotted, Tawny, and Short-toed Eagles, Black Stork, and Egyptian Vulture.
After our convoy back across the Eastern Desert to the lush pastures of the Nile, it was wonderful to spend two nights on Crocodile Island at Luxor, surrounded by Nile Valley Sunbirds, Purple Swamphens, and Red Avadavats, and to enjoy more classic Egyptian history with visits to Karnak temple (by night and day), Luxor temple, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens (with close views of Trumpeter Finches), the mortuary temple of Ramses III, and the Colossi of Memnon. More birds and more history followed with whistle-stop visits to the temples of Edfu and Kom Ombo, a route lined with Black-winged Kites and European Bee-eaters.
Then it was another wonderfully relaxing afternoon on yet another private boat cruising around the islands and the first cataract at Aswan, seeing no less than eight species of herons (a Striated on a nest with young just feet from our cameras was particularly appealing) plus a pair of Ferruginous Ducks and even better views of Nile Valley Sunbird, Senegal Thick-knee, and Pied Kingfisher. Our private-boat tradition continued the next day with a visit to Egelika island to view Philae temple (White-winged and Whiskered Terns en route), followed by a welcome break at Tut Amun village for mid-morning drinks and casual birding before yet another convoy drive took us almost to the Sudan border at Abu Simbel and another sound-and-light spectacular at the awesome temples.
Here we scored perhaps our greatest victory: finally receiving permission to charter a private boat on Lake Nasser, the first time any tourists had been granted this privilege in four years, ensuring that this farthest point in our Egyptian odyssey provided us with an appropriately grand finale. On a day that began with Crowned and Spotted Sandgrouse and finished with Egyptian Nightjar, we had amazing views of the sub-Saharan specialties for which this corner of the Western Palearctic is famous: African Pied Wagtail, Yellow-billed Stork, and Pink-backed Pelican, with a supporting cast of White Pelican, Greater Flamingo, Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Egyptian Goose, a curious Egyptian Goose x Common Shelduck hybrid, and, most excitingly, two Nile Crocodiles. All this and the temples by daylight.
Our flight back to Cairo was in time for us to lunch at the traditional Egyptian restaurant in Khan el-Khalili (a fascinating maze of retail therapy opportunities) and another afternoon with our charming and lucid history guide at the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the Solar Boat. Yet even after this, our final half day was no anticlimax, as our hotel grounds provided new birds (Rufous Bush Robin, Common Nightingale, and Common Whitethroat), and our stroll around the Gezira Sports Club grounds gave us not only Ring-necked but also Alexandrine Parakeet, the latest eastern species to establish a feral breeding population in the Western Palearctic, leaving time for our sixth and final boat experience—lunch on the Nile—before a speedy transfer to the airport and an on-time flight to London.
- Bryan Bland