“Nowhere else in the world can you stand and admire the representation of the falcon-headed god Horus, at Kom Ombo in the Nile Valley, for instance, only to find that a pair of the living bird, the Common Kestrel, is breeding on a masonry ledge in that same temple today.”
—From The Birds of Egypt and the Middle East
Covering 280 bird species in Egypt and the Middle East, Hoath, a fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a faculty member at The American University of Cairo, has created an indispensable and compact identification guide for the ardent birdwatcher and casual enthusiast. Entries feature color photographs for each bird with details regarding size, distribution, habits and habitat. Particularly enticing for birdwatchers,
, and hundreds of species—from raptors and cranes to wagtails and bee-eaters—make the twice-yearly migration, for which the guide provides advice on hotspots to witness one of nature’s greatest spectacles. In his introduction, Hoath highlights the unusual benefit of being able to use the guidebook to identify not only the birds seen outdoors but also the ones that soar through the reeds and marshes of ancient Egyptian tomb paintings.