November 2006
Of Rays and Men
Thoughts on the late conservationist Steve Irwin and stingrays — and a primer on the winter migratory bird season
By Richard Hoath

SEPTEMBER SAW the death of Australian television personality and conservationist Steve Irwin. Familiar to anyone with a satellite TV dish, the larger-than-life Aussie presenter, with his trademark khaki jungle suit and bloke-ish enthusiasm, built up a cult following among Discovery Channel groupies. An audience beyond animal addicts tuned in to his escapades with poisonous snakes, crocodiles, alligators and other oft-maligned creatures.




My brother, who could not tell a Dachshund from a Dugong, was an Irwin addict. Finally, however, the potentially dangerous creatures for which he did so much to advocate caught up with him. Irwin was killed while filming underwater, stabbed in the chest by a stingray.
I must admit to not being an Irwin fan, though I recognize his enormous contribution to conservation, extending beyond his native Australia. In my mind, his sensationalism overstepped the mark. I found him boorish and felt that his treatment of the animals he filmed was heavy-handed. He certainly courted controversy as well: A couple of years ago, he had to give a public apology when television audiences were outraged at his going into a crocodile enclosure clutching his one-year-old infant. He was also under investigation for mistreating seals and whales in a documentary he filmed in Antarctica.

His death from a venomous stingray barb smacks of the same heavy-handedness. Rays are not aggressive and most incidents occur when a ray, perhaps half-buried in substrate, is accidentally trodden on. To have been stung in the chest implies he was manhandling or otherwise upsetting the fish. Unfortunately, misguided Irwin fans are suspected of revenge attacks following a spate of dead and mutilated stingrays washed up on Australian beaches. This would have sickened Irwin.

Stingrays are, like any venomous animal, potentially dangerous and need to be treated with respect, but millions of divers and snorkelers encounter and interact with these creatures each year. My favorite stingray experience was two years ago off the barrier reef in Belize. The dive boat stopped at a shallow sandy site just inside the reef known as Shark and Ray Alley. Over the side of the boat, the water, only some two meters deep, was seething with Tawny Nurse Sharks and Southern Stingrays up to a meter and a half across the wings. It was into this mass of fish we plunged, finless to avoid stirring up sediment, and spent the next hour communing with the fish. I wrote the following in my journal:

Underwater the rays and sharks are everywhere, but it is not in the least bit threatening. I touch the stingrays. They are very smooth; I would like to say ‘slimy,’ but that has all sorts of negative connotations, which I do not mean. The sharks feel like smooth-grade sandpaper as I snorkel down behind them and stroke their backs. The rays and sharks were here before we came. They stay, and they are still there when we leave. It is a fantastic experience with rays especially (which considerably outnumber the sharks) swimming around and beneath me. I stand with my legs astride in the water and a ray will deftly ripple beneath and through me. I stroke their backs, feel the ‘thorns’ along their dorsum, look into their amber eyes. It is a fabulous, fabulous experience.

I have had frequent encounters with rays in the Red Sea as well, though none to quite equal Belize. The most widespread species seems to be the Blue-spotted Stingray, a golden-brown ray with large, round blue spots and some 90 centimeters long. It is best looked for either half-buried in sea bed sand or lying beneath coral overhangs, often in shallow water. The stings are detachable barbs at the base of the tail.

Larger, sometimes over three meters in length and up to 1.5 meters across the wings, is the Dark-spotted Ray. The name is self-explanatory, as the fish is covered with irregular dark spots. This species is interesting as it is colonizing the Eastern Mediterranean from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal. The young of the Dark-spotted Ray can be found in very shallow water indeed. I once found them at El-Gouna in water that came barely over the ankle. Perfectly camouflaged against the sun-dappled sandy floor, the rays seemed to be ephemeral patches of sand gliding across the shallows.

Larger than a stingray is the impressive Spotted Eagle Ray that can approach 2.5 meters across the fins. Although it, too, can be found in shallow water, it is best encountered off the outer reef slopes or in open water. It is spectacular: dark steely-gray with white spots ‘flying’ through the water on gracefully waving wings. Spotted Eagle Rays feed on mollusks and crustaceans, crushing their prey with powerful flattened teeth. They, too have stings, a series of barbs at the base of the tail.

Above water, things with wings will also be moving. All along the North Coast, migrating birds will be making landfall after crossing the Mediterranean. Some will stay in Egypt over the winter, but for others it is merely a stopover on the way to wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. The feat of migration is simply astonishing. A bird such as the Lesser Whitethroat, a warbler some 7 centimeters long and weighing less than 10 grams, can make the flight from Northern Europe to Central Africa in a mere three or four days, crossing mountain ranges, seas and the arid vastness of the Sahara.

Perhaps the most astonishing journey of all is that of the first-winter Common Cuckoo. Most cuckoos, and the Common is no exception, are brood parasites. The parent cuckoos mate and the female will then lay her eggs in the nest of a host species, perhaps a Meadow Pipit or Reed Warbler. The young cuckoo is then reared by the host birds until it fledges, by which time it may be many times the size of its duped foster parents.

By the time the fledged youngster is ready for the flight to its African wintering grounds, the adult cuckoos will all have already left. The young cuckoo therefore sets off unguided across thousands of miles of uncharted territory to winter away south, perhaps even as far as South Africa. Then, in spring, it will make the reverse trip unerringly back to its breeding territory. Watch out for cuckoos passing through this month. The adults are pale-gray above, white-barred black below with long graduated tails. The first winter birds are browner, barred throughout and with a distinctive white patch on the nape. These birds will be making the journey for the very first time.

A rather unlikely migrant to look out for at this time is an aberrant woodpecker known as the Wryneck. Both its English name and its rather splendid scientific name Jynx torquilla refer to the bird’s curious habit of twisting its neck into contortions when alarmed. Woodpeckers are characterized by specially stiffened tail feathers that act as support as they search for food up and down tree trunks, and their powerful dagger-like bills to hammer away for insect larvae within the wood. Wrynecks have neither and we have to rely on the anatomists to convince us that they really are woodpeckers on the inside. They are 16 centimeters long with an intricate and beautifully patterned plumage of grays and browns and russet, more akin to a Nightjar than anything else. These enigmatic birds can be looked for in any area of park or garden, and while not common residents, they are regularly sighted in Egypt on passage.

The only other species of woodpecker found in Egypt is the Syrian Woodpecker. Much more a conventional woodpecker than the Wryneck, it is a recent colonist now breeding in small numbers around Rafaa in northeastern Sinai and is particularly common in Israel. The Syrian Woodpecker is boldly patterned in black and white, the male with red on the crown. It also reminds us in these turbulent times that birds have a healthy disrespect for politics.