Spur-winged plovers

Ubiquitous and noisy everywhere around Cairo they are particularly vocal at this time of year when they are raising chicks.

The chicks are well camouflaged.

Violet dropwing

The ponds on the golf course where I live just outside Cairo attract a few dragonflies. This is a violet dropwing on a hibiscus.

Spotted flycatchers at Marsa Alam

Always one of the last summer visitors to arrive in England, spotted flycatchers were moving through Marsa Alam in large numbers. I saw around 40 individuals in the hotel garden over the weekend.

Cattle egret predates tree pipit

One of the more unusual sights in Marsa Alam was a cattle egret catching a tired tree pipit. It was still trying to swallow it an hour later.

Marsa Alam - Egypt

Last week I flew down to Marsa Alam in southern Egypt. It lies half way down Egypt's Red Sea coast and has the reputation of a migration hot spot. I stayed in a small beach side resort with a small area of lawns and palm trees but it was packed with migrating passerines.

The commonest species resting up on their passage north were whitethroat, lesser whitethroat, tree pipit, spotted flycatcher and yellow wagtail. Hundreds of barn swallow and sand martin streamed through overhead, buffeted on the winds being enjoyed by the wind surfers.

Whitethroat, a common migrant at Marsa Alam

Amongst the greenery and manicured grass I found several sedge warbler, redstart, reed warbler and single golden oriole and nightingale.

One of many tree pipit on the lawns

I found 45 species over the weekend and added 19 to my Egypt list.

A summer plumage sooty gull on the beach

My new patch

My work has now taken me to Egypt, and I live about 20 kms to the west of Cairo, in a 'new town' called 6th October City and through the wonders of Google Earth I found a large area of wetland some 10 kms further west.

It seems to be two lakes (each covering about 400 ha) formed by the 'grey water' outfall from the city at 29°56'46.12" N  30°48'30.73" E and given that it is on the very edge of the western desert it looks to be a very promising site.

I've driven out there three times so far and managed a total of 72 species. The commonest water birds are squacco heron, cattle egret, common moorhen and little grebe. The water edges currently hold quite a few waders passing through on migration such as wood sandpiper, green sandpiper, common sandpiper and ruff together with good numbers of little stint and the ubiquitous spur-ringed plovers.

I've seen large numbers of hirundines hawking above the lakes. Mainly barn swallow (with plenty of the Egyptian sub-species, hirundo rustica savignii), sand martin, house martin and a few red-rumped swallow.

Marsh harrier are predictably the commonest raptor but I've also managed pallid harrier, black-winged kite, steppe eagle and common kestrel.

Of the passerines, I've seen three species of bee-eater, three species of pipit, plenty of woodchat shrike and amongst the yellow wagtails of various hues there are a few colourful m. f. pygmaea, another Egyptian sub-species. On my first trip I also managed to kick up a common quail and an egyptian nightjar from the low scrub.

Odonata are evidently fairly thin on the ground in Egypt. Some believe this is due to much of the water being either polluted or overly managed. But I did get this photo of a male red-veined darter.

Red-veined darter

March round up

March saw the end of my all too brief sojourn in Azerbaijan. Although I was only birding there over the winter I still managed 148 species including 21 lifers. Lammergeier, little bustard and dalmatian pelican were amongst the many highlights. It was a pity that even the hardiest birds had vacated the mountains during the depths of winter but it's an area I will certainly return to.

I moved to Egypt towards the end of March and started birding here in the Cairo area so my months total was a fairly decent 106 including just the one lifer, a smart male Ruppells warbler on the golf course where I live which was bird of the month.

Egypt may not have a huge amount of lifers for me but the deep south should hold some surprises and Western Palearctic rarities.