Our plan today was to leave the hotel with a boxed breakfast at 7.00am, take their boat across the Nile to our waiting minibus and head over to Philae Lake for another boating session. We’d ordered coffees for 6.45am and whilst waiting a pair of Reed Cormorants flew upriver and dropped onto the river and began fishing a couple of hundred metres away from us. What a result and certainly not a species we expected to see around Aswan. This is a major WP target for birders and they are usually found around Abu Simbel, way to the south.
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| This pair of Reed Cormorants were the only ones we saw during the entire tour! |
A few Indian Silverbills were also showing well in the small cultivated patch right next to the hotel as well – so a very good start to the day.
Once we made it across to the east bank and met up with Ismael we drove towards Philae Lake, checking out a few smaller patched of water along the way, but only a single White-crowned Wheatear was noteworthy. Once aboard our boat we headed out on what was for all intents and purposes a relatively quiet 3 hour boat trip. Birds were few and far between, save for numerous Whiskered & Gull-billed Terns, Black & Yellow-billed Kites, and all the usual herons & egrets. However, we managed to find a pair of African Pied Wagtails hanging around the shoreline thanks to some sharp spotting from Ian. In fact, as we turned our boat around to get better views the wagtails flew onto one of the marooned boat wrecks and one of them started to sing as we watched from a few metres away. Wow! So two mega Western Palearctic species so far this morning!
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| Another major target - African Pied Wagtail |
Next up was a trip to Philae Temple and a short guided tour for my group, whilst I sipped a cappuccino in the café. I am culturally shallow. Always have and always will be!!! Another huge lunch followed at a lakeside restaurant and then we spent another couple of hours boating on the lake seeing not a lot. So an early finish was agreed and once back in the minibus we called in to a wine shop in downtown Aswan I’d found last year, to pick up some beers.
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| Good habitat right next to our hotel |
We returned to our guesthouse/hotel around 5pm and met up with the last member of our group, Eric Jan Ablas from The Netherlands.
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