By ABA Young Birder, Xavier Edward Gamil Gitre
The golden, burning orb gently pushes against the horizon, disturbing the nocturnal peace of the Egyptian Eastern Desert. Its piercing rays deflect and scatter through particles in the atmosphere, tinging the horizon with brilliant shades of scarlet and amber. The atmospheric palate is subtly mirrored by the tamed waters of the Red Sea, the reflection occasionally shattered by rebellious white-capped waves. White-cheeked Terns dance playfully in the sky’s fire, their buoyant wingbeats bobbing the birds like the buoys below. The terns occasionally break the playdate and intently slash through the water, catching a glimpse of the painted corals and flamboyant fish inhabiting the mysterious scene below.
Unfortunately, I can only absorb the sun’s warmth for a brief blink of an eye. The splendid display of colors will soon transform into a raging fire, beating into my soul and roasting it until it’s reduced to the pain of sweat and sunburn. I also have a mission. Several kilometers offshore lies a large, untouched coralline island. Protected by the Egyptian government for years, Wadi Gimal Island serves as a refuge for vulnerable Sooty Falcons and regionally-important populations of breeding White-eyed Gulls. Intense literature reviews and networking sessions in Cairo left my mind with more questions than answers, and my hands with nothing but a pair of binoculars.
Here I stand, basking in the cradle of warm sunlight below playful terns, a pair of binoculars in my hand, a brisk sea breeze through my hair, and a mind of pure ambition. I remember an old document mentioning a park ranger station somewhere to the south of my lodging, so I stroll mindlessly down the coast in search of such a structure. The shore from which I depart is property of Shams Alam Beach Resort, the comfortable bubble of Eastern European tourists hoping for a tan and societal escapes. The bubble is flanked to the south by the Wadi Gimal Dive Center, a refuge for the zealous divers who hope to experience the thrill of swimming among parrotfish, reef sharks, and dolphins. Beyond the dive center are the pearly gates of true adventure. The restricting bounds of advertising and tourist traps don’t dare venture beyond the southernmost fence of the dive center.
My mind flashes with divine visions of crowded colonies and streaming seabirds as I wander southward. At the edge of the horizon, I see the coralline island resting among the cooking mass of bright azure waters, tiny specks denoting sought-after life forms floating like pixies around the isle. Absent-mindedly sauntering among feathery dreams, I am abruptly snapped back to reality. The dive center’s guards are rather displeased with my attempt to exit the confines of the hotel, making their demands immediately clear with horrid barks. One by one, they join in the boisterous uproar, howling and snapping their teeth at the mere thought of my presence.
They begin to charge at me, one a salivating rottweiler. Blood from my heart shoots around my body as I dash madly for the safe grounds of the hotel. My lonely terror is their bloodthirsty entertainment; it’s still too early for the daily influx of beachgoers. Sweat streams down my face in a cascading stream in the hundred degree heat. “This’ll make a good headline,” I think to myself, as my once-utopian feathery dreams turn to scenes of rottweilers feasting on my flesh on the beach. Thankfully, however, adrenaline and endorphins work their magic, and I once again establish myself safely within the confines of the hotel grounds. I take a quick shower and, as nonchalantly as possible for someone who has just been chased by rottweilers, join my family for breakfast. Though the safety and nourishment are satisfying, a pit of discontent rests within my stomach.
After a few hours of snorkeling with sea turtles and listening to Umm Kulthum on the beach, my discontent boils over. I once again depart the sheltered confines of the European tourists and find myself at the dive center. Upon confirming the dogs’ absence, I proceed around the building and ask a gardener for directions to the ranger station.
Following the gardener’s instructions, I wander beside the coastal highway over ancient packed sands. Distantly on my right is a myriad of coralline mounds and rocky mountains, remnants of an ancient sea. Vast sandy plains lie between myself and those mountains. Tamarix and acacia trees scatter the horizon, gently texturing the seemingly lifeless, rocky sands. Two millennia ago, the Via Hadriana must have led merchants and Roman legions along the same dusty path, winding for miles through dry wadis and past lonely Bedouin settlements. Alone along the two-lane highway, I picture myself riding a giant Steppe Eagle, the Hadrian of Aves, binoculars trained on a handsome Red-tailed Tropicbird as discontent turns to newfound hope. Thanks to the gardener’s directions, I finally reach a small outpost in the desert situated between the dusty highway and the glistening waters of the Red Sea. Although the building appears more like a run-down house, the boats and vehicles strewn about beside it confirm my suspicion that the outpost is the ranger station.
The sea breeze briskly brushing my face, I approach an open door frame on the seaside structure. The interior is completely lifeless, a hallway of white paint and emptiness. I hear voices, but fail to elicit a response when knocking on the frame and calling out to them. Defeated, I gaze upon the sea as if to confront it. Distant seabirds still stream across the horizon to and from the island like vehicles on an interstate, too far to identify but too close for surrender. Though I needn’t do so with the same grace as Moses, I must cross the Red Sea. I must reach the island.
In a bout of inexplicable hope, I see two figures in my peripheral vision. Rangers, perhaps. Donned with sandy camouflage uniforms and kalashnikov rifles, they stride authoritatively down the coastline. I wave to them widely. Smiling, they return my wave, but do not yield their attention. In desperation, I call out to the soldiers, but the crashing waves drown my distant pleas. They continue onwards. Birdless defeat is once again snatched from the mandibles of feathered victory.
With nothing to lose, I find it prudent to wander deeper into the park. Though any reasonable person would return to the hotel and try to find another time to catch a boat or park authority, after hours confronting consistent failure in sweltering heat, reasonability is not my foremost ambition. Disgruntled, tired, and disappointed, I walk through an opening in a poorly constructed wooden fence, beyond which is likely a future as hopeless as the protected area from which I came.
In the downtrodden evening light, a hut emerges from the scrub and acacias beyond the fence. And then another. And another. I look up to see a village of reed huts, neatly constructed behind the dunes directly bordering the Red Sea. From inside the huts, voices decorate the evening soundscape. Thanks to western media and popular culture, desert nomads are seen in a very mysterious light (if “light” is the right descriptor — perhaps “shade” is more appropriate). Whose voices are these? Are the voices’ owners friendly? Opting to adopt a more risk-free approach to the situation, I begin to walk away. Considering my luck, I’d probably be better off running. My heart sinks to the abyssal plain as I hear a voice raise in volume significantly. Though I cannot see its creator or make sense of its words, I know that the voice is directed at me.
Dread nearly paralyzes my movement. However, upon pivoting my head, I see a gentle old man smiling warmly and waving to me. Tall, dressed elegantly in a clean white robe, and crowned with a wonderfully patterned red and white keffiyeh, he invites me into the reed hut. Dread now dominated by an unusual combination of awe and alacrity, I enter the structure. About twenty-five feet across, the floors of the square hut are covered in ornate rugs. On the edges are cushions patterned with colorful zigzags upon which I take a seat. In the center of the hut is a large water dispenser, a small fire, and several shishas. The man and his fellow elders kindly invite me to sit around the small fire, chatting gleefully. Whether I am in a Paulo Coehlo novel or reality, I am unsure. As the sun sets beyond the structure’s entrance, more of the village elders enter the hut to sit around the fire and smoke shisha together. I am offered a steaming shot of strong Bedouin coffee. The brew is complemented wonderfully by warm spices and the gentlest of elderly grins. Though my Arabic is rough at best, and my life is now indistinguishable from a fictitious novel, the hospitality of the Bedouins brings me an elated sense of belonging.
After some light conversation over the shots of coffee, the reason for my wandering becomes the crux of the conversation.
“Well, I am on a mission to document birds on Wadi Gimal Island. I was just looking for a man named Said Khodari to-”
“Said Khodari?”
“Yes, apparently he is the local bird expert. You know him?”
“I know Mr. Khodari very well! His phone number is…”
Surely enough, Mr. Khodari picks up the phone.
I awake early once again. The soft morning light gently coats the coastline scene with emergent yellow and lights the streaming gulls like a fresnel lantern. White-eyed and Sooty Gulls line the resort’s lonely swimming pool. I stand alone on the beach again. Two pairs of White-cheeked Terns flow elegantly through the skies, dashing and diving with great pomp and circumstance at the water’s surface and screeching at each other playfully. A tern lounges with great poise atop a high buoy. Her mate flutters over the reef and plummets into the water, retrieving a small silvery fish. Illuminated gallantly by our closest star, he hovers before his perched mate, offering his catch. At the same time, Western Reef Herons zoom down the coastline. The sun’s light, deepening as it rises, reflects off the water’s surface like gold flake. The handsome, deep blue, snowy-chinned herons, bathed in aureate luminescence, gracefully dance about the shallow reef, aggressively jolting around and throwing their wings to the sky for balance. I know that today will be my day.
At 8:00 AM sharp, I queue at the Wadi Gimal Dive Center. It is open for the first time since my initial visit, and I inform the employee of my desires. Per the suggestion of Mr. Khodari, I request that I charter a boat. After a strenuous explanation as to why I would watch birds, I am led across the center to another employee. Receptive to my ideas, he says that there should be no problem. The manager, however, has a different idea.
An hour of negotiations later, I wield in my hands the contract and payment information. The compromise we reached is that I will snorkel in the reefs according to their program, photograph the dolphins, and then be able to document the birds on Wadi Gimal Island from the boat. My newfound success is met with jubilance from my family and friends, all of whom now wish to join my adventure. It is also met with the mid-morning swarm of tourists. Apart from the occasional White-eyed Gull flyovers, the beach has become meaningless. This, however, is no problem for me, as I am soon to depart the beach. As I dash back to the dive center with signed papers, my initial visions are revived.
I see our Zodiac dinghy parked in the miniature doc. Each person in our boating party is briefed by our joyful guide Ahmed, decked in a black wetsuit. Ahmed is the center’s deep-diving instructor, a senior member of the facility appointed by the manager to be our guide. I can only imagine what condition the manager thought I should be diagnosed with when I passionately argued for the observation and occasional photography of common Red Sea bird species. Regardless, we pack the dinghy. The engine spools up. I want to be introspective and reflect on the adventures that led me to this point, but excitement conquers all else. Binoculars in hand and anticipation in head, I prepare myself for the experience of a lifetime.
Above the boat, a cloudless sky provides an uninterrupted lek for the abusive sun. It beats down on our skin and thrashes at our souls. The strength of the mighty dinghy, however, soon pushes us at such speed that the wind provides some relief from the pain. For miles and miles ahead, the clear horizon is interrupted only by the coralline mass of Wadi Gimal Island. Behind us lies the ancient system of wadis and ridges of Wadi Gimal National Park. Below lies an expansive system of coral reefs, painted with brilliant shades of crystal, cyan, and Prussian blue. As dorsal fins emerge from the water, the captain pulls back on the throttle. The clicks and whistles of communicating dolphins surround the boat as if a fairy tale has consumed us. The dolphins gracefully break the surface of the water, using their tails to cut through the blue seas like a razor. Each squeak encodes a special message. Their smooth, gray bodies cast shadows in the water beneath the dinghy as they playfully ballet about in the utopian waters.
Though dolphins are cool creatures, they aren’t birds. Thus, we break away from the pod and barrel towards a coral reef to snorkel. At the reef, I crawl out of the Zodiac with Ahmed and dip my head below the surface of the water. Beneath the blanket of cyan blue rests an explosion of life. Red Sea clownfish, painted in brilliant orange and decked with white stripes, dance among waving anemones. Clams with bright blue lips filter the water for food. Tang and bannerfish; decadently dressed in oranges, yellows, scarlets, and blacks; dance around bright corals. Alienesque cornetfish slash through the water like translucent spears. Gargantuan green sea turtles feast on nearby grass beds. The natural world never ceases to induce the feeling of being awestruck.
I feel a light tug of my arm. Ahmed says something excitedly, though I am not able to make out his words very well. As a gray figure slithers into the scene, I recall the fact that nature also never ceases to inspire fear in its admirers. About the size of my brother, it patrols its coral domain with malicious intent. Its fins are pointed sharply and marked at the tips with black ink. I am suddenly struck by “Selachimorpha hypertension.” I bite with great strength onto my mouthpiece as the shark mindlessly meanders 40 feet below, unaware of the shockwaves left in its wake. Just days before, a man was killed by a tiger shark in Hurghada, not far from where we are now. Our shark is a only a young blacktip reef shark — not a particularly aggressive species — but we huddle together and swim back to the boat just to be cautious. In awe of the life of the reef and in shock from the shark, I climb back into the Zodiac. It’s time for the main event.
Courtesy of the sun, my clothes are dried within minutes. I rummage gleefully through the waterproof bag for my binoculars and camera as we skirt the surface of the water in the direction of the island. Ahead, gulls and terns commute between their island dwellings and feeding grounds. Waves tenderly rock the boat as the freedom of the wind is hindered by my outstretched arms. The engine’s chugging is quickly drowned out by the cries of boisterous groups of Lesser Crested Terns prancing around the sky, examining their crystal blue menus. Ahmed smiles into the wind and instructs the captain to begin cruising around the island. Stopwatch, notebook, binoculars, and camera in hand, I prepare for the big count. The plan is to conduct a 30-minute count from the boat down the outward-facing side of the island, a 30-minute point count at the island’s southern tip, and another 30-minute count from the boat down the inner side of the island.
The boat swerves around the north side of the island, my feet nearly kissing the water’s surface as I stand on the side of the Zodiac. Sandy cliffs rise above the north side of the island as I begin counting. Above the rocky cliffs patrol the occupants of a Sooty Falcon colony. They soar gracefully through the skies about the sandy golden bluffs. Their dark plumage gives the impression of a falcon’s shadow more than it does a falcon. Their ashy contour feathers are juxtaposed with sulfur yellow bills and legs. Their long, narrow wings taper at the tips, atop which a darkening gradient forms from the dull, rocky gray coverts to the coal-black primary tips. The same gradient also lightly glazes the lengthy tail, the mechanism behind the falcons’ sharp maneuvering. The falcons dance across the skies like Tchaikovsky’s ballerinas across a stage, each gesticulation exercised with intense elegance, lifting my reverential soul with each stoop.
We loop around the seaward side of the island. The rocky bluffs soon give way to the flat, coralline interior of the island, covered by a few scattered halophytic shrubs and a few hundred nesting White-eyed and Sooty Gulls. The White-eyed Gulls, Red Sea endemics, glide in the breeze and call amongst themselves with great clamor. Adorned with jet black hoods contrasting sharply with their snowy eye crescents and blood orange bills, they flamboyantly display their masterly plumage as they rush past the boat in search for food. Below the White-eyed Gulls, a pair of haliaetus Ospreys perch with great bearing atop a dead shrub. They’re handsomely dressed in chocolate brown and ivory white, establishing authoritative auras. The male takes off and hunts for fish with great dexterity, plunging feet-first into the rich waters. His accuracy is partly attributable to his glare-cutting deep hickory eye stripe and special-order fish-gripping talons.
From behind a small mangrove stand, our landing point emerges. The captain slows the Zodiac and skillfully weaves through a coral maze before making landfall. A Slender-billed Gull, modestly colored with a splash of fiery red on its bill and feet, flies into the calming zephyr. As the engine cuts, the screeches and calls of terns populate the soundscape. Gusts kindly fight the sun’s ambitions in order to make the air more tolerable. A juvenile Caspian Tern joins me on the sandbar, topped with a cookies-n’-cream-themed cap. He loafs amongst a large colony of White-cheeked Terns. Their slender, ashy gray bodies are darkest at the wings, gradually whitening up to the cheek. The white cheek then contrasts cleanly with an obsidian black cap. Their bills are of a melanistic complexion with an inkling of paprika-orange towards the base. At the other end, their tails are forked like decorative streamers, and their wings are long, attenuated, and subulate at the tip. On the island, pairs of White-cheeked Terns synchronously raise their bills to 45-degree angles and hold their tails upright in what is known as the “erect posture” of the tern. As I count the colony’s occupants, White-cheeked Terns from other colonies populate the skies, traveling to and from feeding grounds with supple, rowing wingbeats. Many hold precious fish in their spearlike bills for their families. Lesser Crested Terns soon join the highway, painted cleanly in white with sharp black caps and bright orange bills. Larger than the White-cheeked Terns, they cut through the breeze with greater stability and purpose.
We soon return to the Zodiac dinghy for the final portion of the survey. The engine spools up, almost drowning out the screeches of the terns. On the shore of the main island, a white morph Western Reef Heron dashes around the dunes as if an angelic vision, stabbing at movement in the sand. We move past huge colonies of terns, housing hundreds of birds in collective exuberant clamor, each individual with its own aspirations of successful chick-rearing. Sooty Gulls cover the interior with scattered nests on the unforgiving rocky landscape, their caliginous plumage surely an annoyance in this heat. Finally, we turn away from the island. What was once a pit in my stomach has now been filled.
Strangely, the captain calls my name and gestures to the controls of the boat. I’ve never driven a boat, nor have I planned to. I look to the captain, who sits down on the edge of the boat to smoke a cigarette. Then, I look to Ahmed, who calmly instructs me on which direction to steer. Drowning in ignorance, I grab control of the steering wheel and direct the boat back to the mini-marina. The wind rushing through my hair carries my spirit to great heights, the same wind that a Sooty Falcon feels rushing over his feathers when he stoops through the skies above a deserted island. Water splashes into my face, burning my eyes and leaving salty streaks on my backpack, the same water that crashes into the face of White-cheeked Terns plunging into the reefs in hot pursuit of dancing minnows. For the last time on the Red Sea, I see behind me the golden, burning orb, gently pushing downward against the horizon, tired from radiating so passionately, its fusion-generated photons scattering, nature’s Monet assembling itself.
