You can’t imagine how human behaviour can be
destructive unless you faced with one of these destructive behaviour . During
the period from 23rd March to 4th April 2011 we ( Esmat , Nasir , Mohanad ,
Officer Suliman Hakim and his soldiers )
were surveying Nuba lake in Northern State in the border with Egypt to assist our colleague Ismail
in his Nile Crocodile study . The survey success depends mainly on our
local guides Ali Balla (expert in crocodile behaviour and distribution) and
lovely Ahmed Ibrahim( boatman).
During our normal survey, we stopped at small
island to monitor crocodiles from that Island.
We found about 10 nests of Egyptian goose but only two of them had eggs (11 and
14 eggs in each) and we thought for the first time that the empty nests may
hatched but no broken egg shell remained near the site
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| Egyptian Goose nest on the ground- Nuba lake 26th March 2011 |
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While we were talking, a fisherman stopped by
the island with his boat and we noticed that he had dozen of geese eggs in his
scarf and immediately the mystery resolved. He knew very well the site and the
rest of eggs in the two remains nests but he didn’t know that we are conservationists
as he offered us to take some eggs
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| complete nest in the fisherman scarf- Nuba Lake 26th March2011 |
The big surprise waiting us when
we arrived his camp on an island just about 100 meter from our island. We
shocked by the hundreds broken eggs around the camp and 25% had dead embryos. He
simply explained that ‘ I felt boring from eating fish ,so I decided to change to
bird’s eggs’. We clearly noticed that he didn’t collect these eggs from one site due to the large
numbers of broken eggs and when he stopped at the island ,he was already
carried some eggs.
He claimed that he didn’t know it is prohibited . At
this point we felt guilty too as we didn’t have awareness programmes for them
inspite the importance of the lake for migratory birds and crocodiles as well
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| part of the broken eggs- Nuba Lake 26th March 2011 |
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| Egg with dead embryo- Nuba Lake 26th March 2011 |
Thousands of migratory Egyptian goose inhabiting
the lake during winter while large numbers were seen molted and bred as well as spur-winged lapwing in the
islands scattered throughout the lake.
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| Pair of Egyptian Geese- Nuba Lake 28th March 2011 |
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| Egyptian Goose with chicks- Nuba Lake 28th March 2011 |
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| Ground nest of spur-winged Lapwing- Nuba Lake 28th March 2011 |
The Nuba lake is very wide with many islands
scattered in the whole lake which used by birds and crocodiles for nesting. The
eastern side of the lake is mountainous while the wastern side mainly sandy with
small hills. Species seen there were great white pelican, spur-winged
plover , little egret, African skimmer ,
Nile Valley sunbird , white-crowned wheatear, European turtle, whiskered tern,
white-winged tern, squacco heron, mourning dove, laughing dove, lesser
black-backed gull, grey heron etc.........
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| Female white -crowned wheatear- Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
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| Whiskered Terns -Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
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| Black-winged Stilt- Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
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| Great White Pelican- Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
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| African Skimmer- Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
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| Squacco Heron- 29th March 2011 |
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| Senegal Thicknee- Nuba Lake 29th March 2011 |
While our boat passing near the sandy bank, we observed colony of sand martin in the sandy wall . During our returned back , we stopped at water pumping building to say hallo and filled some questionnaires . I noticed nest of Eurasian Crag Martin on the room wall.
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| Sand Martin colony on the sandy wall- Nuba Lake 30 March 2011 |
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| Eurasian Crag Martin nests on room wall- Nuba Lake 30 March 2011 |
I always (Esmat) carry my mist net with me in my
traveling incase we find suitable place for capturing birds for identification
and ringing. We erected two mist nets beside bush area and small hill where
many small birds flying. Some species captured such as Nile
valley sunbird and lesser whitethroat
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| male Nile Valley Sunbird- Nuba Lake 1st April 2011 |
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| Lesser Whitethroat- Nuba Lake 1st April 2011 |
we are guilty i agree with you on that we need to aware this people we need to let them know the importance of this birds in the nature of that lake and the whole area in general so lets start from now just let us know what you need from our side..
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