Wonderful project where you can upload sightings of wildlife onto the Project Noah Database.
Please photograph the Egyptian wildlife and then upload to the site so we can share the beauty of nature in Sinai and Egypt round the globe.
Project Noah
Showing posts with label Lake Bardawil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lake Bardawil. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Project Noah
Wonderful project where you can upload sightings of wildlife onto the Project Noah Database.
Please photograph the Egyptian wildlife and then upload to the site so we can share the beauty of nature in Sinai and Egypt round the globe.
Project Noah
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Lakes of Egypt
The Lakes of Egypt
"Each in its own way, startlingly beautiful"
Written by Tor Eigeland and Martin Love
Additional photographs by Tor Eigeland
Lakes in Egypt? What lakes? Well, okay, there is Lake Nasser, and may be you could include the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah, but they're really part of the Suez Canal - aren't they?
It's a common reaction. Egypt, to the non-Egyptian, usually brings to mind such features as the Western Desert, the Suez Canal and, of course, the Nile. But lakes?
In fact, there are numerous lakes in Egypt. Even if you don't include the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah which, as part of the Suez Canal system, are fed by the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, there are at least seven sizable lakes with a total surface area of 3,600 square miles-enough to accommodate 130 Manhattan Islands. They are: the High Dam Lake, straddling the Egyptian-Sudanese border in the south; Lake Qarun, southwest of Cairo, and, from west to near the Mediterranean coast, Lakes Maryut, Idku, Burullus, Manzilahand - in Sinai - Lake Bardawil.
These lakes, admittedly, do not compare in size with the Great Lakes, and the terrain is nothing like the wooded shores of lakes in New England, northern New York and Canada. And some would argue that five of them - Maryut, Idku, Burullus, Manzilah and Bardawil - are more inlets of the Mediterranean than real, fresh-water lakes.
On the other hand, most of the lakes are, or were, fresh water lakes. All but one -Lake Bardawil in the Sinai Desert - draw some water from the Nile. And though the terrain may be different from the lake districts of North America or Britain, the seven lakes are, in their own way, startlingly beautiful.
Lake Qarun, for example, lies at the edge of the fertile Fayyum region, but at the far end of the lake, in striking contrast, are the dunes of the Western Desert. On shallow Lake Maryut near Alexandria you can see fishermen poling canoes silently and swiftly through forests of tall reeds, and on Lake Idku, just to the east, visitors to the lake might find fishermen standing waist deep in the water far from shore rhythmically gathering in the folds of their nets.
One particularly lovely lake is Lake Bardawil, in Sinai, which sits like a blue-green gemstone embedded in dunes of sand that change in color from brown to yellow to pink, depending on the time of day. And then, of course, there's the High Dam Lake, formerly called Lake greatest as well as the newest. Nearly 298 miles long -112 miles of it in the Sudan -and 590 feet above sea level, the High Dam Lake, a vast inland sea behind the Aswan High Dam, is breathtaking.
But one aspect of the High Dam Lake is also, in an odd way, sad; for beneath the lake's waters, slowly crumbling away, are the homes of thousands of Egyptians who had to be relocated as the waters of the Nile backed up behind the dam - as well as vast areas of what was once desert and some monuments of ancient Nubia that, unlike the famous Abu Simbel, could not be relocated.
The High Dam Lake is not in the same category as the other six lakes. Incomparably larger, and more famous, the High Dam Lake may in time be developed into one of the great resorts of the world, where, planners predict, there will be floating hotels, crocodile pools and tourist villages along the banks. But in one aspect ifs similar to the other lakes: it provides a livelihood for fishermen - an estimated 6,000 - and food for thousands of Egyptians.
Indeed, fishing is the chief economic value of all the lakes. The catch on the High Dam Lake, for example, has grown from 2,662 tons in 1968 to 27,000 tons in 1979. Lake Burullus, measuring only 265 square miles, supports an estimated 45,000 fishermen, and on Lake Manzilah, about twice as large as Burullus, the boats often stay out for a week or more and merchants from shore communities sometimes sail out to buy up fresh fish on the spot.
Like many lakes in Europe and North America, the lakes of Egypt have suffered severe ecological damage from industrialization, modern agricultural systems and unexpected side effects from projects meant to help, not hurt Egypt's economy.
On Lake Maryut and Lake Idku, industrial wastes and chemicals used to spur agricultural productivity nearby are damaging the fish habitats; fishermen say that in Lake Idku fishing as an industry is dying. The salt content of Lake Qarun's waters has risen so dramatically in recent years that sole and shrimp, brought from Mediterranean hatcheries, now thrive in the lake - but at the same time other problems threaten nearby agricultural efforts.
On Manzilah and Burullus, fishermen are worried about the erosion of sand bars which separate the lakes from the Mediterranean. Said the mayor of al-Burj, Atiya Ramadan: "Previously, one to one-and-a-half yards were added to the coastline each year. Now the shore is being eaten away at a rate of 30 to 40 feet a year... and this winter our whole town was flooded three times during storms."
Lake Bardawil, fishermen claim, is being choked by weeds because two channels which connect the lake to the Mediterranean are clogged with sand. The fishermen say the lake can no longer breathe and cleanse itself.
Ironically, the High Dam Lake, which has become a fisherman's paradise, and the dam itself, which provides Egypt with electric power, may also be contributing to the ecological changes taking place at the other lakes. Most of the Nile's silt, a life-giving and natural fertilizer, instead of pouring onto the Delta's farmlands, is settling into the lake. Some of the silt, furthermore, may have helped maintain the coastal bars and dunes which separate some of the lakes from the Mediterranean.
The dam, fishermen say, also deprives the other lakes of the nutrients that once sustained the fishes' habitats. As a result, the fish have diminished in size and number in the past decade. Even worse, perhaps, the High Dam Lake may be the cause of an alarming rise in Egypt's water table - the level of underground water. With some 4,500 billion cubic feet of water backed up behind the dam, the lake, in the past 11 years, has found underground channels and its water is surfacing in the Western Desert, along the Mediterranean and, according to some experts, even leaking into tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
Fortunately, though, Egypt is very much aware of these problems and has begun to search for solutions. Geologists from the universities of Cairo and Alexandria are studying the problems, several experimental drainage projects are under way and, according to Abdulgani al-Masri, chairman of the High Dam Development Authority, Egypt has "just about completed" the Tushka Canal. The canal is designed to divert some of the Nile's waters into the Tushka Depression and thus ease the lake's immense pressure.
As to the other lakes, the solutions are relatively basic: restrictions on the dumping of industrial wastes, improvement in drainage to prevent pollution from insecticides and fertilizers and better techniques to monitor changes in water quality. As one scientist said of Lake Maryut, "It has tremendous self-cleaning potential. If you stop the pollution, the lake will recover."
The lakes, beautiful as they are, are testimony to the fact, as scientists and ecologists have only recently begun to discover, that man can quickly and unwittingly damage what nature took millennia to create. They are also testimony to a diversity in Egyptian geography that is not commonly supposed and a beauty largely unknown.
Ornithologists Dream at Lake Bardawil
Lake Bardawil ( بحيرة البردويل Buhayrat al Bardawil or سبخة البردويل Sabkhat al Bardawil) is a large, very saline lake in Egypt on the north coast of the Sinai Peninsula. The lagoon is shallow (reaching a depth of about 3 metres) and is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a narrow sandbar.
Lake Bardawil is about 90 kilometers (56 mi) long, and 22 kilometers (14 mi) wide (at its widest).[1] It covers an area of about 700 km2 (270 m2).
Bardawil is the Arabic version of Baldwin, the name of five Crusader Kings of Jerusalem. The lake lies in an area which, in the Crusader period, was disputed territory between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Egypt, and as early as Herodotus was considered to mark the boundary between Syria and Egypt. Its marshy edges were Herodotus's Serbonian Bog.The Zaranik Experience at Lake Bardawil.
SPECTACULAR SEA-WATCHING
Autumn sea-watching in the eastern Mediterranean may not be considered exciting compared to north-west European headlands, but small numbers of Cory's Calonectris diomedea and Mediterranean Shearwaters Puffinus (puffinus) yelkouan are regular whilst three species of skua are often present, indicating overland migration from the breeding grounds in northern Russia. Up to 25 Arctic Skuas Stercorarius parasiticus, double figures for Pomarine Stercorarius pomarinus and a few Long-tailed Skuas Stercorarius longicaudus can be expected but it is the huge passages of herons, ducks, waders and terns which make this a unique sea-watching site.
Westerly migration at Zaranik seems to be independent of the weather and is apparent on a daily basis. Birds either pass out to sea, close inshore, along the beach, high overhead or inland behind the viewing point, the proverbial eyes in the back of the head are very useful. In early September day totals over 22,000 Garganey, Anas querquedula more than 2,000 each of Night Nycticorax nycticorax and Purple Herons Ardea purpurea, in excess of 700 Squacco Herons Ardeola ralloides and out at sea movements of Little Bitterns Ixobrychus minutus which can exceptionally exceed 1,000 in a day, have been recorded. It can prove challenging keeping up with 600 White-winged Black Chlidonias leucopterus and 300 or more Whiskered Terns Chlidonias hybridus in addition to the 44 species of waders that have been observed flying past. To newcomers the first Nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus battling against a headwing under a hot sun comes as a surprise but up to 150 in a day is not unusual. In October, day peaks of over 1,000 White Pelicans Pelecannus onocrotalus and 32 Great White Egrets Egretta alba in a day have been noted but the overall volume of passage is much reduced, although, as yet, little known about these later movements.
Some scarcer species have been observed, such as Sooty Shearwater Puffinus griseus and Sabine's Gull Larus sabini, both of the two Egyptian records of the latter species have been at Zaranik. Recent observations indicate that Audouins Gull Larus audouinii is regular with up to 5 present in autumn 1995.
The real value of the sea-watching lies in the annual species totals which may show long term trends. In the early 1980s over 220,000 Garganey passed Zaranik but in recent years fewer have been counted. Whilst heron numbers have increased waders numbers have decreased, Avocet Recurvirostra avosetta numbers in particular are lower, former totals of 2,700 in a season are no longer matched.
ZARANIK LAGOON
Many of the birds counted whilst sea-watching also pause to rest and feed on and around the Zaranik coastal lagoon and the salt company lagoons further inland which can be counted by walking along the track past the pumping station. Substantial numbers of herons, gulls and terns are usually present and among the commoner waders a few scarcer species can be detected such as White-tailed Plover Chettusia leucura, Terek Xenus cinereus and Broad-billed Sandpipers Limicola falcinellus and Pacific Golden Plover Pluvialis fulva. Zaranik is perhaps the most regular Egyptian site for Black-winged Pratincole Glareola nordmanni and Grey Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius. Cream-coloured Courser Cursorius cursor, another casual visitor, is most often recorded near the Observatory.
In the winter up to 10,000 Greater Flamingos Phoenicopterus ruber are present along with small numbers of Black-necked Grebes Podiceps nigricollis. Important gatherings of wintering gulls include up to 1,000 Slender-billed Larus genei and 300 Armenian Gulls Larus armenicus and the occasional Egyptian rarity, such as Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator. To check the site in the winter, use the track by the artificial lagoons south of the pumping station and fishing village.
PASSERINE MIGRATION
Radar studies indicate that at the height of the autumn migration, up to 20 percent of the millions of birds arriving from southern Europe/Russia make landfall along the coast each day. At Zaranik, the bushes growing in the dunes near the Observatory hold most birds in the spring but in the autumn, most migrants are concentrated in areas nearer the shore. The bushes closer to the beach and around the pumping station should be checked for migrants as well as the fishing village and low vegetation behind the sea-watch point. Further west, along the track around the artificial lagoons there is El Fusiyat island is another very productive area for migrants.
The autumn migration starts early when Lesser Whitethroats Sylvia curruca and Willow Warblers Phylloscopus trochilus are the most numerous passerine night migrants in the region.
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The massive waterbird migrations of the autumn are not repeated in the spring but substantial passerine migrations occur from late February when Lesser Whitethroats start to arrive from sub-Saharan Africa. From early March this migration increases with large visible passages of Short-toed Larks (up to several thousand daily) and then later in the month impressive numbers of summer plumaged Ortolan and Cretzschmars Buntings, with a wide range of warblers, Masked Shike Lanius nubicus and Wryneck. Late April and early May is also interesting with significant arrivals of Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla and small numbers of Barred Sylvia nisoria and Orphean Warblers Sylvia hortensis.
RAPTORS AND BREEDERS
March and April is perhaps the best time to see occasional thermalling raptors such as Lesser Spotted Aquila pomarina, Steppe Aquila nipalensis and Short-toed Eagles Ciraetus gallicus, as well as White Storks Ciconia ciconia, which may arrive if strong southerly winds drift birds away from the Sinai mountains. In September up to 20 Honey Buzzards Pernis apivorus have been noted flying in off the sea. Both Montagu's Circus pygargus and Pallid Harriers Circus macrourus also occur at this time but require a keen eye for separation. The main falcon passage commences with perhaps an Eleonora's Falcon Falco elenorae or a party of Red-footed Falcon Falco vespertinus on roadside telegraph wires in late September. These are followed by Hobby Falco subbuteo in good numbers through October with occasional Lanner Falco biarmicus and then a few Long-legged Buzzards Buteo rufinus and Black Kites Milvus migrans later.
There have been few observations in summer but breeding birds include Avocet (the only breeding site in Egypt), Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus (1,900 pairs in the area, internationally important), Spur-winged Plover Hoplopterus spinosus, Little Tern Sterna albifrons (1,200 pairs, internationally important), Palm Dove Streptopelia senegalensis, Great Grey Shrike Lanius excubitor and Hoopoe Lark Alaemon alaudipes. Summering species include Greater Flamingo, Greater Sandplover Charadrius leschenaultii, Slender-billed Gull and Desert Wheatear Oenanthe deserti.
THE OBSERVATORY
Zaranik is an important bottleneck for migrating birds and is to feature in the forthcoming Important Bird Areas of Egypt. It was established as a Protected Area by the Egyptian Government in 1983 and forms part of the Lake Bardawil RAMSAR site declared in 1988. It is also the site of Egypt's first bird observatory and a great opportunity exists for others to experience this magnificent migration spectacle. The Observatory can accommodate up to six people in three bedrooms and has electricity and water. Zaranik is located 35 kilometres west of El Arish on the main north Sinai road and can be reached by either bus and taxi services both of which regularly operate between Cairo and El Arish, although arrangements need to be made to stop at Zaranik. Intending day visitors are advised to contact the Manager, Waheed Salama in advance as visits to the area need to be properly cleared with the local authorities. Entry to the Protected Area is free but an accommodation charge of £3 Sterling per night is levied for staying at the Observatory and this must be pre-booked with Waheed Salama.
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Zaranik Protected Area, North Sinai, Egypt, showing sites mentioned in the text.
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