Photos with this report (click to enlarge) | |||
 hooded wheatear |
 brown necked raven |
 scrub warbler |
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 little green bee eater |
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Good way to start the new year! Plenty of birds and a lot of culture to go and see. Wrap up warm in the early morning and evening, I even wore thermal undies at dawn in the desert! Booked with VJV, two weeks in the Captain’s Hotel Aqaba half board about £800 each, saves trying to find somewhere to eat every night, food good, nice new hotel. The hotel is in the resort part of Aqaba close to the sea, lots of places to eat and buy stuff. This is also a working arab city, many in the tourist industry, but requires proper behaviour i.e. no holding hands, snogging, stripping off on the public beaches (you wouldn’t want to go to those anyway), boozing in public etc. The city is split into the seaward tourist area and the more inland local dwellings making the tourist part very peaceful, at least at this time of the year. The hotels have, sadly, stitched up most of the beachfront in the city so no idea of long strolls by the sea but they will provide a safe haven for western beach behaviour. Much development is taking place to the south of the city, e.g. Tala Bay, where excellent snorkelling can be done at present in a number of diving clubs but also in future from the hotel/development beaches. It was a tad chilly in January but we managed to snorkel a few times aided by buying 3mm wetsuits after the second swim to facilitate a longer stay in the water. Unfortunately, if the prevailing north wind gets up the waves breaking on the reef front will make snorkelling more tricky although should not affect diving.
Safety. Marvellous, people are lovely on the whole, tourist police common and no hassle from locals apart from taxi drivers beeping or very occasional police/locals interest in that big camera and lens around your neck. People sleep rough or in tiny tents in the plots/castle area but they are workers and will not bother you apart from a few strange looks. Louise did not feel threatened at any time and even when entering the sea from a public beach crowded with locals did not feel too conspicuous, although we did not want to do it again because we felt so self conscious. We were in a zone close to Israel and some problems occurred regarding presence and especially photography, my hobby, dealt with by military and police who were on the whole stern but polite, more will be said of this under the appropriate sites. I saw no other birdwatchers the whole time I was there. Mines worry me, especially after wandering in the desert near Sharm el Sheikh and seeing piles of used ammo’. I spoke to a demining engineer in the city who said they were hoping to clear mines by the spring but I guess if you stay away from the border areas, which you should do anyway, you should be safe enough.
Car hire. Pefectly possible and done from Europcar opposite the hotel, after a first week without a car, and at a “special price” of JD35 per day including full insurances etc (no liability as far as I could see), exactly the same as everybody else’s “special price”. This was for a small 2 door car, perfectly adequate on the hills to the maximum speed limit. If you drive you will have to negotiate police and army check points, no problem, I suggest keeping the surveillance equipment out of view although I did pass a few with the camera, lens and bins on my lap. Most don’t speak English (why should they!) and only want to see your passport. Going in and out of Aqaba you will also have to negotiate the special economic zone stations which will not be any more complicated since you are a tourist, they are only there to check Jordanians taking lower taxed goods out of the zone as far as I can see. They are situated a few miles north of the city on the Dead Sea and desert highway roads. Fuel is ridiculously cheap for us at about 60p per litre, although an increasing worry to Jordanians. Driving was a doddle, no traffic jams in the city and very quiet on the open road. They are crazy drivers though and will cut you up, jam up at the traffic lights as many cars abreast as they can and race away, just let them do it! There are large numbers of huge lorries moving and, as anywhere, it is wise to be careful about where you pull up. Taxis are perfectly possible and cheap, just watch out for the usual attempts to rip off tourists (enterprise) and decline, they will normally just carry you for the “proper” rate without rancour.
What about the birds!!!!!
Information. Very little is available but a good idea can be gleaned from Israeli reports from Eilat and the lower Arava Valley, although the latter is much greener than on the Jordanian side. Obviously, it is better to go at migration times when you will see much more but if you are in need of a winter break as we were, then now is good. Salam Nizar al Labadi project manager in charge of the sewage works arrangements tried to put me off by saying the was “nothing there” because it’s winter but I found more than enough to keep me photographically occupied. For arrangements as I understood them see the sewage works section below.
Reports used by me were:
Neil Tovey http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=1176
Ernesto Occhiato http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/jordan/Jordan3/Jordan-oct-07.htm
There are about 40 more reports on the travelling birder website http://www.travellingbirder.com/tripreports/trip_reports_Jordan.php?from=1&to=12
Books: Rough Guide, Globetrotter Travel Pack (useful map) and Lonely Planet all useful. Free tourist map of Aqaba excellent. The Birds of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Ian J Andrews (25JD) and Wild Flowers of Jordan: Dawud MH al-Eisawi (20JD) were bought in the excellent Redwan Bookshop.
And the sites and birds…………………..
Aqaba seashore. Between the castle, flag on a huge pole, and The Royal Yacht Club, under palm trees on the seashore, are a bunch of little allotments growing vegetables which are a haven for birds in the city centre and doubtless a good draw at migration time. Here I saw Water and Red throated Pipits, Cattle Egret, Brambling!, White Wagtail, Chiffchaff (mostly more eastern by call, abietinus?, but a few of “ours” by call), House Crow, Black Redstart, Stonechat, 1 male Red Backed Shrike, White Eyed Gull (distant as always), Black headed Gull, Ring Necked Parakeet, Desert finch, White Breasted Kingfisher, Song Thrush, Spanish Sparrow. A weird combination!
Aqaba, a Wadi at Aila, the old city just west of the Royal Yacht Club. Collared and Laughing Doves, Hoopoe, Spectacled Bulbul, Blackcap, Palestine Sunbird, Chiffchaff, House Crow, and on a late evening visit 4 Spur Winged Plover.
Rest of Aqaba. 1 Caspian Tern was seen from the Royal Diving Club, Kentish and Greater Sand Plovers and Heuglin’s Gulls were seen from a large public beach between the docks and the first development to the south. This area can be got into by car currently and is thronged at the weekend with Jordanians, but just looks like waste ground. To the west of the city centre up to the Israeli border is now just one huge building site, the palm trees are all gone. Doubtless this will prove attractive, as at Sharm el Sheikh, once finished (where is all the water coming from, applies to both sides of the border?).
Aqaba sewage works. This lies right next to the border crossing into Israel and requires prior arrangements to visit due to the current necessity to get military clearance. The incredibly pleasant and helpful Mr Salam Nizar al Labadi and his colleague from the Jordanian Society for Sustainable Development told me that it is best to apply online here (BUT BEWARE AS GOOGLE LISTS THIS SITE AS CARRYING THINGS WHICH MAY DAMAGE YOUR COMPUTER AS OF SEPTEMBER 2010):
www.jssd-jo.org
specifically http://www.jssd-jo.org/projects/project3.html
Before you go and they can make the necessary arrangements. There will be a website online soon. If you need to find then when in Aqaba go up the right hand (south) side of Prince Mohammed Street from Pricess Haya circle, across King Talal street and you will see two buildings standing alone at present on the right about 50 yards further on. They are in the upper building above the Jordanian marine conservation society on the third or fourth floor. There is no sign on the outside of the building. It costs $10 for one day (less per day for additional days) and I was escorted in and shown personally where not to go, he even spoke to one of the border guards in a tower at one point. You must pass through a military checkpoint before you get to the entrance where they will take your letter of permission and give you a pass which must be handed in when you leave. On subsequent visits they will have lost your letter but will exchange your passport for the pass. The reserve is being worked on currently and a centre is almost finished. The idea is to encourage a new type of tourism but my feeling is that things need to lighten up considerably regarding the difficulty of gaining access. That said the place is fantastic and good for photography, currently possible from a car. The site consists of open concrete lakes, reed fringed lakes, some ditches and water leaks, scrub/wood of introduced plants and native plantings have just begun.
“Nothing there” consisted of Pallas’s and Heuglin’s Gull, Ruff, Common Sandpiper, Little Stint, Tufted and Ferruginous Duck, Mallard, Coot, Teal (doubtless other ducks I can’t remember), Little Green Bee Eater, Bluethroat (absolutely crawling with them), Arabian Babbler, Spectacled Bulbul, Blackcap, Arabian Warbler, Chiffchaff, Stonechat, Indian Silverbill, Black Redstart, Scrub Warbler, Black winged Stilt. Must be crawling with stuff at migration time, hope to go back!
Up the Dead Sea Road.
This is close to the border, do not go on the west side of the road! My only “unpleasant” encounter with police occurred near Qatar ca.40km north of Aqaba. They looked at my gear and pictures and wagged a finger in a very severe way and said “no negative”. I had stopped, for the second time, by a small group of fields and tamarisks because on the first occasion I had surprised a Long Eared Owl bothering a group of roosting Bulbuls. There were a number of other common desert birds here, there is a piece of Acacia woodland adjacent, but nothing not perfectly common elsewhere. My feeling is that it might be wise to travel this road but turn off, eastwards only, in the few places possible before indulging in any of our dodgy activities.
Such a turnoff well worth visiting is for Qurayqira, 130km north of Aqaba which crosses flat and then rocky desert and then enters the town and, beyond this, goes to the Feinan ecolodge (back end of Wadi Dana Reserve) by a sandy track. We only travelled as far as the town. The turnoff lies immediately before a military checkpoint. The site is mentioned, as Fidan, in Andrews P29, and the military camp behind the hills looks disused now. We parked up at a bridge by the wadi about 1 or 2 km off the main road and were not bothered. Immediately after turning off the main road, within 100m, we chanced across a group of about 20 manic Hoopoe Larks right by the road offering a slight chance of photography. This was also the only place I saw Bar Tailed Desert Lark. At the Wadi were Rock Martin, White Wagtail, Arabian Babbler, S Grey Shrike, Arabian Warbler, Blackcap, Scrub Warbler, Desert Lark, Stonechat. Further on in Acacia woodland (the trees are very well spaced apart 10s or even 100s of metres, not woodland as we recognise it!) Little Green Bee Eater. In Qurayqira loads of Tristram’s Starlings, Hoopoe, Little Green Bee Eater, Spectacled Bulbul.
Up the Desert Highway towards Amman we ventured to Petra and Wadi Rum, absolute musts for everyone. There are more than enough birds to satisfy you and plenty for non birding partners to see and do. Our first venture was on tours organised by VJV, excellent though they were I would not recommend them either for tourism or especially for bird watching as they rush you on albeit very knowledgeably and you miss the beginning and end of each day. We returned by car in the second week and stayed at the excellent Bait Ali Camp ( www.desertexplorer.net ) near Wadi Rum and the Petra Gate Hotel in Petra.
The desert. Water is a useful draw for attracting birds. Bait Ali camp has leaks above the camp by the water tanks, ask Susie, where I photographed Trumpeter Finch and saw Sinai Rosefinch just before I left (if only I had known!) I am pretty sure as I left I saw a Spotted Flycatcher, weird. Wadi Rum tourist centre has taps for the local guides which drip just behind a façade suuporting the arch over the road to Rum village opposite the centre itself. Here I photographed Trumpeter Finch and a very tame Hooded Wheatear. Human activity is also good for attracting some birds. Bait Ali Camp had very tame Desert Larks sitting on the entrance wall as we drove in. An irrigated area by a hamlet just before Bait Ali Camp on the tarmac road had Desert, Isabelline, White Crowned Black and Mourning Wheatears, Blackstart, Spectacled Warbler (following the Black Redstarts closely!), Black Redstart, Stonechat, Brown Necked Raven and Desert Lark. Next day there was almost nothing there, are birds moving even in January? Further along the road past the turn off to Rum you come to a village called Disseh, just past this is an extensive area of irrigated fields and a short stop near broad bean fields revealed Bluethroat, Chiffchaff, Corn Bunting, Crested Lark. At the Wadi Rum centre there was one Red Throated Pipit in the flower beds, strange.
Petra. Absolutely fantastic place and good for birds as well. Just walking around the normal tourist routes. Scrub Warbler, Spectacled Bulbul, Mourning and White Crowned Black Wheatears, Rock Martin, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Fan Tailed Raven, Blackstart, Blue Rock Thrush, Sinai Rosefinch and a lot of spectacular rock both carved and otherwise.
Very few raptors were seen, Kestrel was common, one buzzard in the highlands just before Petra was presumably Long Legged, some big raptors were flying over the mountains directly east of Aqaba but no telescope prevented a decent look, not one sandgrouse. A rather pathetically short list for a ticker but I hope my photos posted on surfbirds please some!