By any standard, cranes are magnificent birds. They include among their number the Sarus Crane of south and southeast Asia — the tallest of all flying birds at over 180 centimeters and held sacred over much of this range. Also revered is the Japanese Crane, elevated to the status of national monument and famous for its bizarre and exotic courtship dances. In South Africa is the elegant Paradise Crane, a vision (I’ve seen it) in ash-blue with flamboyantly elongated tail coverts that give it its name. Over in the New World is the Whooping Crane of North America, at one time the rarest bird in the world reaching a nadir of a mere 23 individuals. Today, thanks to rigorous and sometimes controversial conservation methods, the species is gradually clawing its way back with a population now numbered in the hundreds.

This spring two species of this spectacular group will be flying over Egypt on their way north to European breeding grounds. By far the most numerous will be the Common Crane — 110 centimeters in length, long-necked and -legged, pale gray throughout with a black neck, white nape and red crown. This month neat skeins, or Vs, of Common Cranes can be seen flying their way north over much of the country. Though the literature reports them as more numerous in the west in spring, I have seen small flocks over the Nile Valley in April and larger groups over the Eastern Desert and along the Red Sea coast. Ain Sohkna is a hotspot, with flocks using the thermals rising from the cliffs to circle up and gain height before moving north to Suez and on through Sinai and the Levant. Cranes are big birds but though the sight of a flock is uplifting enough, they are often found first by sound, a not overly loud but curiously far-carrying trumpeting krro krro — breathtaking.

Any flock of Common Cranes should be carefully scrutinized. Amongst their number may be a much rarer and smaller species — at 90 centimeters still substantial, similarly gray with a black neck but no red and with an elegant white plume that curls down from above and behind the eye. This is the Demoiselle Crane, an appropriately chic name for an undeniably chic bird. And it has enigma to match the elegance.

The Demoiselle Crane winters in Sudan south to the Sobar River and is reportedly quite common. I haven’t seen them there as the Sudanese authorities are not welcoming of foreigners travelling around with note books and binoculars, particularly in these troubled times. I have it on the authority of Cave and MacDonald’s Birds of Sudan which, though published in 1955, is still a key text on the country’s ornithology. The Demoiselle Crane breeds in Eastern Turkey and the southern states of what was the Soviet Union and each year it is reported in good numbers in transit in Cyprus. It should be here in similar numbers but seems to disappear. Egyptian records are few and far between. I have dozens of sightings of Common Cranes but in 20 years I have seen the Demoiselle just once; a single bird in the very un-enigmatic environs of Sharm El-Sheikh’s sewage ponds way back in 1993. Perhaps they follow a different route to the Common Cranes across the uninhabited and largely unwatched expanses of the Western Desert. Perhaps they fly high or at night. It remains a mystery.

As is so often the case, the Ancient Egyptians recognized that there were two species of crane here and both the Common and Demoiselle are frequently portrayed in tomb friezes, sometimes in situations that imply at least semi-domesticity. Perhaps the most famous is the group of beautifully portrayed cranes in the tomb of Ti dating from the Fifth Dynasty. Here 14 Common Cranes and Demoiselles are portrayed quite beautifully and with rare accuracy (many Pharoanic depictions have the bill far too long and spiked). But the accuracy is something of an illusion. Count the heads and there are the 14 birds. Count the legs and you only have 22, six short of the requisite 28. Perhaps the artist just got bored with carving crane legs.

On the mammal front things are stirring too. In the delta and valley south at least to Luxor the Swamp or Jungle Cat will be giving birth to litters of up to four kittens. The Swamp Cat is larger than the domestic cat or indeed its wild ancestor, the Wild Cat, weighing in at some 7-11 kilograms, long-limbed and with a length of 90 centimeters including a proportionately short tail of 25 centimeters. It has a rather elongated face, ears with a small tuft and is uniform ochre-beige with at best subtle banding. It has a range over much of South Asia west through the Middle East to Israel. It then crops up again in the Nile Delta and Valley.

As with any large mammal living in such a densely populated environment it is extremely elusive and wary. Neil Hewison, author of the excellent The Fayoum: History and Guide reports a sighting from that oasis but the most recent record is of kittens rescued in spring 2007 by Animal Care in Egypt (ACE) based in Luxor. This, and an earlier litter, had been discovered by workers in the cane fields which emulate the cat’s natural reed-bed habitat. It is reassuring that the kittens were taken to the rescue center rather than just killed, but the species is still persecuted. Their skins and occasional stuffed specimens (though so badly stuffed as to be barely recognizable) still crop up in Khan El-Khalili and Kerdasa. Still I find it very reassuring that a species of wild cat can still exist in a region of such intense human activity.  et