THERE IS NO real reason why the black bush robin should enter the Egyptian psyche. This skulking, black relative of the thrushes was first confirmed in Egypt as recently as 2000 in Gebel Elba, to the nation’s far south, though there have been three previous unconfirmed records stretching back to 1896. Its chestnut relative, the rufous bush chat will be arriving here soon, but its sooty cousin remains a foreigner, an avian khawaga.

This is odd because the black bush robin is expanding its range rapidly from sub-Saharan Africa. First recorded in Israel in 1981, it was recorded breeding at Eilat by 1994. It’s presence last year in Jordan in Wadi Araba was confirmed in a paper published last fall by Grieve et al in Sandgrouse, the journal of the Ornithological Society of the Middle East (OSME), its presence was confirmed in Jordan in Wadi Araba. The black bush robin, in every sense of the word, is spreading its wings.

I am familiar with the black bush robin. I found it in the Forest of Sunt in Khartoum, Sudan, some years ago. It is a bulbul-sized bird, uniformly sooty black with striking white tips to its graduated tail. The one I found was a single individual sunbathing, perched in an Acacia tree with its back to the sun, its back and rump feathers fluffed up to take full advantage of the wintry (in as much as Sudan gets wintry) sun.

Why, if the black bush robin is being recorded as a breeding species from Israel and expanding its range from sub-Saharan Africa to appear in Jordan, has it been recorded so rarely in Egypt?

The reports from Israel are confirmed, and I know the senior author of the Jordan report, Andrew Grieve; he is a superb naturalist, and if he records a black bush robin in Jordan, then I am absolutely certain that there are black bush robins in Jordan. What concerns me is what is happening in between, and in between is Egypt. Why, if the black bush robin is being recorded as a breeding species from Israel and expanding its range from sub-Saharan Africa to appear in Jordan, has it been recorded so rarely in Egypt?

Chance. That is one possible response, so I went to the literature. From the Collins Bird Guide (1999), the following species have been recorded from Eilat, and hence Israel, and a few kilometers of coastline, but have not been recorded from Egypt, with its hundreds of kilometers of Red Sea coast: shy albatross, streaked shearwater, flesh-footed shearwater, Atlantic petrel and the lesser frigatebird. The conclusion surely has to be that we are not keeping our eyes open.

You do not miss an albatross.

The wandering albatross has a wingspan of nearly four meters and while that of the shy is rather less, it is still considerable, up to 2.5 meters. With the massive development of tourism and the explosion of dive-boats going out, surely more of these species should be being recorded here. And it is not just the birds; it’s the sea mammals, the dolphins, even the whales.

In Key Environments: The Red Sea, authors Edwards and Head note that “despite their relatively large size, our knowledge of cetaceans in the Red Sea is extremely fragmentary.” Picture yourself on a dive-boat when the dolphins arrive. There is euphoria, abandon, and elation. But who knows what species of dolphin they are seeing? That could be important. We are not recording what we are seeing.

That being said, unconfirmed records are coming through. Back at the OSME website (www.osme.org), a frigatebird was recorded off the Red Sea coast last year, but could not be assigned to any species. It could have been a lesser, greater, magnificent, Ascension Island or Christmas Island frigatebird though given the Israeli record, bets have to be on the first. Frigatebirds are gangly, long-winged pirates that earn their keep by harassing other seabirds such as gulls or terns for their fish prey indeed they are also called man o’war birds. I have watched magnificent frigatebirds in the Caribbean mercilessly taunt brown pelicans for their catch. Clumsy on land and rarely alighting on the water, they are supremely adept in the air.

Also on the OSME was a record from March last year of a slender-billed curlew. This bird was recorded at Hamata along the Red Sea coast, and one bird might not seem that special. But this bird is extremely rare and any record is precious. In my first bird guide the slender-billed curlew was portrayed on the European distribution map as a blank, just an arrow between an extra-limital breeding ground and an unknown wintering ground.

Since then there have been regular records, supported by photographs, from Morocco. But they are still frustratingly rare. Common curlews winter here in reasonable numbers I saw several last October at Ras Mohammed. Its smaller cousin the whimbrel is less common but still reasonably widespread on migration, and again I have seen them at Ras Mohammed mostly in the Mangrove channel. But the slender-billed! Wow. Smaller and slighter than the common curlew with a smaller bill and distinctive heart-shaped spots along the lower breast and flanks, the slender-billed curlew is a bird to die for.

But you do not have to travel to get your rarities. Another Spring record from OSME is that of a little swift in Zamalek last year. Swifts are hard to identify but, paradoxically, are familiar. Anyone who has experienced the joys of the Mogamma on Tahrir will be familiar with the screaming flocks of pallid swifts wheeling around the building. The pallid swift and the common swift are devilishly difficult to tell apart, both scimitar-winged, dull brown and cigar shaped, the former being slightly paler tan than the latter. At least the little swift has the courtesy to offer the viewer a white rump. The dilemma then becomes whether it is a swift or a house martin but the latter also has a white belly. The final odd Spring record from 2004 is of an Ethiopian swallow. Very like the common barn swallow we have here year round, it lacks the rufous throat and has an incomplete breast band. But I am very skeptical.

I finish this on a quirky note. While getting my daily news fix from the Daily Telegraph website (www.telegraph.co.uk) I noticed an odd headline that trumpeted “Zoo Defends Bid to Mate Gay Penguins.” Apparently Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany has an all male colony of the endangered Humboldt penguin. This threatened denizen of the western coasts of southern South America is a rather thick-billed, white-breasted member of the penguin family.

The enforced bachelors have been “discovered wandering around in pairs, trying to mate with each other and sitting on stones as if they were eggs.” The zoo brought in four females from a zoo in Sweden. Gay activists have been enraged, accusing the zoo of trying to ‘cure’ the penguins. The beleaguered zoo authorities have been inundated with virulent letters and calls from the so-called pink lobby. The zoo director argues, with some logic, that it “is the only way to save a dying breed from extinction.”

In March, Spring has sprung, but obviously not always in the direction one expects  et