It took almost all of January, but finally: my first #featheredfriends post of the year! And also the first one back from really cool holidays; enjoyed them so much that since this week's SMAP has a free theme, my featured birds come straight from said vacations!
Not that these are new species (although I did spot a few there!), but they where a common presence in urban areas. Heck, they even stayed at my hotel too!
Hooded crows are one of my favourite raven species, because of the contrast between the grey body and the dark wings and head - giving the impression of a "hood". Funny, in these photos the grey looks almost a reddish colour, likely a reflexion given the time of the day.
I stayed in a hotel facing Giza's pyramids, and the sunset view from the hotel top was amazing. Clearly I wasn't the only one with that opinion, because the crows where there too, enjoying the view; the golden hour was painting the sky with an incredible orange tone.
They did allowed me to get pretty close, but flew away as soon I started to venture a little bit too close to their liking. It wasn't the last time I saw them, though. The next day, I had a pyramids tour scheduled, and do you want to guess who was also there?
There they where, perched on the rocks near the Sphynx, watching the constant flow of tourists passing by.
In Cairo, this was the crow species I saw the most; from what I researched, there are a few more very interesting species in Egypt, but unfortunately, the only other species I've seen seems to be an invasive one. On another part of Egypt, near the red sea, the house crows were the majority.
House crows are an not native to the country, and I'm actually unsure if I'm naming the species right; there are a few subspecies where the contrast between body and wings is far more marked, with a grey tone resembling the one of the hooded crow; clearly not the case here. In some of the photos they appear totally black, but live it was clear the dark grey body, almost with a metallic tone.
One thing for sure: they were waaaaaay more noisy than the hooded crows! And the amount of sounds they created was amazing too: crows and ravens can mimic other birds (and not only birds) sounds.
This one flew to one of the chairs near me. After a thorough inspeccion, hopping back and forth on the lounge chair, facing me...
She decided I wasn't that much of a threat, so off to the sand.
And... concert time!!
What followed was a couple minutes where miss crow decide to display all the array of sounds she could produce, from the normal calling, to chirps, to something similar to dog barks: absolutely amazing! A thousand times this to loud radios blasting whatever crappy music.
Too bad that the cooler crow species with some distinctive colours haven't appeared, but that's a great excuse to go back and try to find them!
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