Al-Hamra, Oman. January 29 2020. From a 3,000-metre-high pass in the Al-Hajar mountains of Oman I was privileged to follow the path of an Egyptian Vulture as it soared overhead, spiraling higher until drifting away on the wind. My driver-guide companion stopped without hesitation to allow me to watch this strikingly marked bird. He was experienced enough to patiently wait out my enthusiasm, not that he shared a scrap of it, but he’d taken birder-tourists around before and was good at responding to urgent demands to stop.
It was quite cold on that short stretch of road, we were at the range’s highest point where a fiercely rugged back-country track abruptly gives way to a smooth slide off the mountain’s spine to Al-Hamra, a sizeable town on the desert plateau below. Its name, I was told, means red as in red-hot, a reference to its searing summer months.
I had no idea what the vulture was at first but large, black and white, eagle-size with bright yellow legs and beak didn’t take long to identify as an Egyptian Vulture. It was easily Bird of the Day and would have been even against stiff competition; although there wasn’t any, unless I count this lone Variable Wheatear.
The Al-Hajar Mountains are a dry and harshly rugged range that stands between the peopled coastal plain of north-east Oman and the endless Arabian Desert. To travel through these mountains is to glimpse valley communities who have probably seen scant change in hundreds of years. They are little villages wedged in the tight folds of austere cliffs and peaks and occupied by farmers and herders who thrive by capturing and rationing the surprisingly abundant sweet water to irrigate Date Palms and small pockets of land.
