Wadi Rum!

We did make it to Wadi Rum, “a valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock” where some of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, and it was spectacular. We had a guide, Ali, who grew up there, and whose mother remembers when and where the movie was made. He drove us around on the soft sand in a Mitsubishi L200 pickup, just like the one I drove to Ukraine a while back, and he was wonderfully terse with his descriptions.

Our first stop was a spot called “Lawrence’s Spring“, and there was indeed water flowing out of the side of a huge rock with camels there to drink it. The bigger draw for me, however, was the wildlife it attracted even in the heat of late morning. This first hearty soul, perched on a trough built to catch water for the camels, is also our very first desert lark (Ammomanes deserti).

Another small bird in the vicinity and on the hunt for bugs that the water supports was this dapper-looking white-crowned wheatear (Oenanthe leucopyga), our first of the species and only our second in the genus.

When I first looked up the northern wheatear we saw back in Trabzon, I mistakenly read it as “wheat eater”, which made sense to me, and I only managed not to write it that way because I tend to “copy and paste” long names to minimize just such errors. Once I realized my mistake, I had to look up the etymology, of course, and perhaps you will be as amused as I was to read that “the name ‘wheatear’ is not derived from “wheat” or any sense of “ear” [or even “eater”], but is a folk etymology of “white” and “arse“, referring to the prominent white rump found in most species.” Ha!

Anyway, at the first stop already, we could also see large black birds soaring overhead, but we didn’t get a close enough look for an identification until we stopped at Khaz’ali Canyon. There we found these two investigating an eroded sandstone cliff face, and I managed to capture this image, which is just good enough to ID them as our first brown-necked ravens (Corvus ruficollis) and only my second raven species.

Just as in the American southwest, there are rock bridges, and we stopped at the closest, which also happens to be the smallest, aptly called “Little Bridge“, and that is where I was finally able to get a close-up of the little birds we had been hearing twittering all morning but had been struggling to get eyes on. Well, as you can see, we may be able to blame our difficulty on the fact that they happen to be colored perfectly to blend in with the sandstone because they are Sinai rosefinches (Carpodacus synoicus).

By fun coincidence, the Sinai rosefinch is the national bird of Jordan “because of its rosy color, which is similar to the color of Petra, ‘The Red Rose City’, and because of its large inhabiting of the Jordanian desert.” It is even featured on the one Jordanian dinar bill.

Finally, I had been seeing grayish swifts or swallows swooping overhead and low over the sand all morning, and I valiantly tried to track them with my camera or even just my phone, but my efforts were completely in vain, and I despaired that we may never know who they were. Thus, you may imagine my elation when we made a final stop at the visitors center to use their facilities before we began our drive back across the desert to Aqaba, and I spotted a pair swoop in to perch on a little ledge under the portico. I first did my best with my phone, just so I’d have something, and then I bolted back to the car to grab my camera. Thankfully my luck held, and perhaps they had a belly full of flies that needed digesting, because they were still there when I got back, and they didn’t even seem to mind when I captured this portrait. It turns out that they are neither swifts nor swallows but crag martins, so say hello to our first ever pale crag-martin (Ptyonoprogne obsoleta).

Lastly, as I was hunting rosefinches and wheatears, I happened to notice this amazing creature quite casually strolling over the pink sand, and it appears to be a pitted beetle (Adesmia cancellata).

Next, we’re off to see The Red Rose City for ourselves, which you may recognize for its supporting roles in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation. With any luck, there’ll be some wildlife there, too.