MANY PEOPLE HAVE asked whether I’d be covering bird flu in this column and the answer, quite frankly, is no. First of all, I am not a medical doctor. While I can claim some knowledge of birds and their habits, bird flu is a virus. I like my creatures to be big enough to see with the naked eye, and I will leave viruses to those that ply their trade behind microscopes and with agarose gels. Secondly, this is being written a month before the April issue hits the newsstands, and things seem to be moving rapidly. Only two days before I put pen to paper, the first case of bird flu in a cat was discovered in Germany. As this story was being edited, I learned that Egypt had not one but two confirmed human cases of H5N1. What I write today may be inaccurate or plain wrong by April.

That said, I was made very aware of the flu the other day. I visited some friends in Dashur who are lucky enough to have a villa and garden by the lake. It is an idyllic spot. Rafts of wild duck such as Mallard, Teal, Pintail, and Coots can usually be seen on the water. Little Egrets, Great White Egrets, Squacco Herons and Glossy Ibises patrol the shallows and, in recent years, a Greater Spotted Eagle has overwintered there.

My most memorable Dashur lakeside moment was three years ago when, while trying to track down a diminutive wader called the Jack Snipe, a flock of three Ruddy Shelducks flew in. Decidedly uncommon here, they are handsome birds, about the size of the Egyptian Goose, a deep rufous orange with a paler head and, in the male, there is a narrow black ring around the neck.

This year, apart from a few small puddles, there is no lake. Instead, it has been drained so as not to attract overwintering and migrating wildfowl. It is now grazed by Bedouin flocks of sheep, goats and cattle. Interestingly, the Bedouin’s chickens are now enclosed, presumably to avoid contact with the odd Little Egret that is still around.

With the water birds largely absent, it was up to the garden birds to provide the entertainment, and they did not disappoint. Just that morning, my hostess had disturbed a pair of Senegal Thick-knees who had taken up residence on her roof. She is expecting them to nest soon, and while she has seen eggs in past years, she has never seen the chicks. Like most waders, Senegal Thick-knees have nidifugous — literally ‘nest fleeting’ — young that hatch from the egg covered in down and ready to go about doing whatever it is that Senegal Thick-knee chicks do. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Senegal Thick-knee, apparent in the young as well as the adults, is its large, staring yellow eyes, an adaptation to its mainly nocturnal habits.

Another Nile Valley specialty is the Senegal Coucal. Coucals are large, rather clumsy cuckoos, around 40 centimeters long with a long, graduated tail, bright chestnut upperparts, cream breast and belly and a black hood. Unlike most cuckoos, Coucals are not parasitic on other bird species, but rear their own young. A rather skulking bird, the Senegal Coucal is difficult to see but its call, a deep ‘hoo hoo hoo,’ is a typical sound in the Nile countryside, sounding much like air being blown across a bottle mouth. Indeed, an African relative, the White-browed Coucal, is known as the water bottle bird.

Courtesy John Swanson St. Anthony (left) and St. Paul with the Brown-necked Raven

Also characteristic of the Egyptian countryside is the Graceful Warbler, now known as the Graceful Prinia. This tiny ball of feathers, barely 10 centimeters long, has a slender, graduated tail, the feathers tipped black and white, often cocked, and a pale eye-stripe. It makes itself known through its strident song, an insistent, frenzied rendition described as ‘srrlip srrlip srrlip srrlip’ that, while not necessarily tuneful, is certainly admirable coming from a bird so small.

Not everything at the farm was feathered. Damselflies abounded along the irrigation ditches, waif-like jewels of emerald flitting over the water. Damselflies and Dragonflies belong to the same order, both having long slender bodies and heavily veined lacy wings. Dragonflies are generally more robust and chunky, and the two can easily be differentiated at rest. Damselflies rest with the wings held alongside the body, while Dragonflies hold their wings fully spread. Both will be breeding in spring, the pairs copulating in flight and the female laying her eggs in slow or still water. The nymphs are rapacious predators, taking other invertebrates, small fish and young tadpoles.

Despite the joys of Dashur, the highlight of my recent past has been clocking up a new species of bird in the unlikely environment of the library. I was flicking through Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe’s Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa. Planning an upcoming trip, I was torn between homing in on the endemics of Zanzibar off Tanzania or heading for the Kenyan coast and such joys as the Sokoke Pipit and the Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew, and found myself thumbing through the barbet section.

Barbets are distant relatives of the woodpeckers. Widely distributed in the tropics, they are thickset, often bullish birds, many boldly colored and heavy-billed. They do not reach Egypt. I came across an interesting species, the Usambiro Barbet from southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. It looked familiar, and rightly so as it was very similar to D’Arnaud’s Barbet that I had seen on several occasions. It is a heavily speckled bird, yellow dotted black below and brown spotted white above with a crimson vent. But the Usambiro Barbet has recently been separated from D’Arnaud’s Barbet and the population in the Masai Mara on the Kenyan border with Tanzania is now classified as the Usambiro Barbet. I was in the Mara in 2001 and had sketched the courting ceremony of what I had thought were D’Arnaud’s Barbets.

Now they are Usambiro Barbets, a brand new species for me five years after the event — but it’s still a wow!

On another note, it is heartening to see the mainstream press in Egypt starting to take an interest in ecotourism, which the World Conservation Union defines as, “environmentally responsible travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas, in order to enjoy, study and appreciate nature (and any accompanying cultural features — both past and present) that promotes conservation, has low visitor impact and provides for beneficially active socioeconomic involvement of local populations.”

With very few exceptions, among them St. Catherine’s and resorts such as Basata, the concept of ecotourism is widely misunderstood in Egypt even as there are tremendous opportunities for growth, especially as tourists themselves are becoming more and more environmentally savvy. Indeed, there is ample space in the global marketplace for Egypt to attract an increasing share of travelers of all ages who are looking for a more ‘natural’ experience, whether that’s responsible desert trekking, hiking or, yes, birdwatching.

But ecotourism does not necessarily come cheap. Last summer in Uganda, I visited the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, an ecotourism project on an island in Lake Victoria. The sanctuary has been developed by a number of organizations working in a novel partnership, among them the Born Free Foundation and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, to provide a home for chimpanzees orphaned by the bush meat trade or rescued from the illegal pet trade.

Here, guests can not only visit the chimpanzees and take forest walks through their pristine rainforest habitat, but can also stay overnight on the island in the environmentally friendly camp. ‘Camp’ is rather misleading, because visitors are entertained in the lap of luxury, but it is green luxury. The elevated two-bed tents are lit, and the water is heated by solar power. There are compost toilets and a rainwater collection facility. All the timber used in construction was locally and sustainably produced.

Importantly, local villagers are involved in the project, and locally produced handicrafts are on sale so the community also benefits. Wildlife is all around. On my visit, the trees were full of chattering flocks of breeding Black-headed Weavers and Spur-winged Plovers patrolling the lawns, both dutifully ticked off the Ngamba Bird List available for free. The price quoted was 160,000 Ugandan shillings (about LE 500) a night, nearly three times what I was paying in a reasonably priced hotel on the mainland, but I felt better and healthier just being there, and more and more people are willing to pay this premium.

Egypt isn’t starting from zero when it comes to ecotourism; in some respects, the country has had a sector going back many hundreds of years. Indeed, the whole concept of the ecolodge could be said to have been invented in Egypt. I refer here to Egypt’s monasteries: Look back at the World Conservation Union’s definition, and you find that many of the country’s monastic communities fill all the requirements to the letter. They are in largely undisturbed natural areas, certainly allow the enjoyment and contemplation of nature, involve the local community and enhance culture.

I was fortunate to visit the Monasteries of St. Paul and St. Anthony last December. Both are isolated in the Eastern Desert south of Ain Sohkna. In both, water from natural springs provides for the monastery, including the watering of gardens where fruits and vegetables are grown using economical drip irrigation. St Paul’s apparently subsists on a mere 40 liters a day for all purposes, so water use is strictly controlled. The monks make their own wine and olive oil. Thick walls keep the rooms warm in winter and cool in summer. The austere frugality of monastic life means there is little waste. Noise and light pollution is at a minimum, and the gardens provide a haven for local wildlife and an oasis for migrating birds.

The only downside was at St. Anthony’s, where I was shown the backswept, knobbled horns from an Ibex that had been killed by local Bedouin and presented to the monastery after tribesmen had had a vision in the desert.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Church of St. Anthony in the monastery of the same name. The interior of the church is covered in recently restored Coptic iconography. It is truly stunning. One of the recurring images is that of St. Paul the Hermit, the ‘first anchorite,’ who lived in a cave near the present monastery until his death around 343. He is often portrayed alongside St. Anthony, heavily bearded, wearing a tunic woven from palm fiber. For the naturalist, what is of most significance is the small black bird (portrayed flying while carrying a loaf of bread, as seen in the picture above) and two lions at his feet.

The bird in question is popularly described as a crow or raven, but in the Eastern Desert we can do a bit better than this and identify it as a Brown-necked Raven. Tradition has it that St. Paul received a half loaf of bread each day from the raven in his desert solitude. In his dying days, he was visited by St. Anthony and received from the bird not a half but a whole loaf in honor of his visitor. To this day, Brown-necked Ravens haunt the monasteries. Solid black birds, 48-56 centimeters long, the brown neck can only be seen at very close range and in good light. Despite their sacred associations, their coarse ‘caarr’ is not a particularly pleasant accompaniment to peaceful contemplation.

More problematic are the two lions. After St. Paul died, St. Anthony wrapped the body in a cloak and removed it from the cave. He had no spade with which to dig a grave, but two lions came out from the desert and proceeded to scratch a hole in the ground large enough for the holy corpse. Once they had gone, St. Anthony buried his mentor.

Except, of course, there are no lions in the Eastern Desert and have not been for thousands of years, so the depiction is intriguing. Two possible candidates have lived in the region, at least into the recent past. One is the Leopard, which resides south of the monasteries, towards the Sudanese border but extended further north in historical times. However, the Leopard is heavily spotted, and there is not a spot to be seen in the iconic representations. The other possibility is the Caracal. This is a medium-sized cat, over a meter long including a short 20-30 centimeter tail. The ears are black behind with striking, long tufts (their name comes from the Turkish karakulak, meaning black ear).

But most importantly, Caracals are uniform beige, unmarked except for darker tear lines on the head and above the eyes. There are a few records from the Eastern Desert, but the species might well be under-recorded as it is notoriously elusive.

So might St. Paul have had his grave dug by Caracals rather than lions? Of course it does not really matter, but it’s a harmless diversion for a curious naturalist. Either way, St. Paul and St. Anthony should be prime candidates for the post of Patron Saint of Ecotourism.  et