Birding Lake Quarun, Egypt

We are in Egypt for a diving holiday but decided to have a day birdwatching from Cairo. A review of eBird hotspots suggested the best place would be Lake Quarun and we managed to track down a guide and transport from the city.

We started the day early (3.40am) to get on site for dawn. We couldn’t be much further from the westernmost country in Africa but the first two birds of the day both had Senegal in the title – Senegal Thick Knee and Senegal Coucal. The coucal we had seen before in Botswana so must have a big range. The Thick-Knee a relative to our Stone Curlew was a lifer.

Talking of Stone Curlew we soon found some of them too along with Crested Lark and a Striated Heron on a wire.

Next we were checking out some waders at a nearby salt marsh. I was able to add a few lifers including Wood and Marsh Sandpipers and refamiliarise myself with some birds I haven’t seen for a while (such as Black Winged Stilt, Curlew Sandpiper in breeding plumage, and Little Stint).

At the end of the lake we were surprised to find several Kentish Plovers in desert landscape and more expected were the Greater Flamingos in good numbers.

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Our guide spotted a Great Grey Shrike on a wire and we followed as it dived for some prey and then flew into a nearby bush. We were delighted to find a family of 6 birds and watch the parent rip the prey apart impale it on a spike (they are called butcher birds for this reason) and then feed it to the babies.

Bee Eaters were common sightings on the wires particularly the European and Blue-Cheeked.

We also saw a couple of Black-Winged Kites on the wires too.

We had at dawn seen a Little Owl but the light was poor, we went back to look again and it was still there so I fired off some shots. We do enjoy Owls

We continued to some small ponds. There were several Herons and Egrets around with the Purple Heron being the pick of the bunch. I still need Western Reef Heron from this region so kept hoping for one but not to be this day.

A constant soundtrack to this area was the Clamourous Reed Warblers who liked to climb reed and sing out loudly. A new lifer albeit a non-native bird was the Indian Silverbill which we found taking nesting materials.

Other noisy birds were the lovely and shy Turtle Doves and the anything but shy Spur-Winged Lapwings.

The understated African Green Bee-Eater was a lovely bird which was a lifer for this trip.

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We took a break during the heat of the day before heading out again about 3pm. In the village Cattle Egret seemed to be everywhere and we also saw a few Hoopoes

We were searching for a Nile Valley Sunbird and checking out likely bushes for a wee while before we were eventually successful finding a breeding male complete with its long tail and bright colours. An endemic of the region – lovely new bird.

It is easy to overlook the ubiquitous Laughing Dove but they are an attractive bird. We had added Graceful Prinia and Clamourous Reed Warbler earlier in the day but now we were seeing them everywhere. Good to get a few record shots of them.

Good not to overlook the insects either

Plenty of Kingfishers around a water channel including this juvenile begging for food which was soon rewarded by a parent performing a food pass for us before returning to a reed to scan the waters again.

We saw several White-Throated Kingfishers too which were a lifer for the trip. This one had caught a mouse which was interesting to see.

Blue-Cheeked Bee-Eaters were nesting in the sandbank

Soon after this point we had brief sighting of an Egyptian Wolf (actually a kind of Jackal and probably inspiration for the Egyptian god Anubis) but not long enough for a photo – you will have to make do with some footprints.

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In the morning we had seen a Greater Painted Snipe but it was not a great photo opportunity being too distant. However, in the afternoon a Snipe took off ahead of us and circled right around before landing nearby and disappearing into the reeds. I was able to fire off a few pictures.

At another pool there were several Whiskered Terns (our guide called these Black Terns but they are Whiskered) and Slender Billed Gulls (both lifers for me). A few Little Terns were present too. At another pool we saw some Long-Toed Stints which were quite a bit different to the Little Stints we had seen earlier in the day.

On our way back to Cairo we went via a fish farm and several Herons were again on display, Most were Black-Crowned Night-Heron but we also saw a lovely Little Bittern in the reeds (another lifer for the day).

Altogether we saw 68 species of birds during the day of which nine were lifers.