An Ornithological Trip in the Gulf of Suez and Red Sea.

Abstract

Summary.From what I personally observed on this trip and from information gathered en route and elsewhere, it would seem that‐in spring at any rate‐the migration along the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez is not very extensive, particularly with regard to the smaller birds. White Storks and Lesser Black‐backed Gulls, however, follow this line in vast numbers on their journey north, though, as regards the first‐named species, the vast majority had passed through earlier than the date of my visit to that district.As will be noted from the list of species appended to this paper, very little collecting was done with the gun. The principal object of the trip was to obtain live specimens of the Osprey and other of the larger birds breeding in the locality for the Giza Zoological Gardens. In respect of the Osprey only was I successful, and returned with three young which were still flourishing in the Zoo collection when I left Egypt in July 1927. I was disappointed in not finding more species engaged in nesting operations, and it would appear that such birds as Sula leuco‐ gaster, Phaëton indicus, Casmerodius albus melanorhynchus, Platalea leucorodia, Larus leucophthalmus, and Sterna bergii welox, which undoubtedly breed in the latitude I visited, do so considerably later in the year than the month of April. Further south, on the Farsan Group of Islands Lat. N. 17°, the Brown Booby was breeding in October. Eggs were found at the end of that month and young birds early in November 1926.