After the “bucket of barn swallows” day, we were feeling optimistic again about our swallow catching prospects in Egypt. The next afternoon we visited the village of Rekabia, the hometown of Badran, the nice man from the fish farm. Our daytime visit to scout nests in the village provoked stares; when we returned at night, the crowds of children were waiting for us. We caught a pair of birds in a chicken coop, and then moved on to a large garage/storage shed that was full of roosting swallows. In addition to Amanda, Basma, Mamdouh, Badran, and I, there were 4 or 5 other men in the shed, all trying to help by shining bright lights on the sleeping birds and crashing around pointing out other nests. Cell phones were ringing, and were answered with much shouting. No amount of asking them to shut off their flashlights and be quiet made any difference- there were two foreign girls climbing over heaps of equipment trying to catch birds, and people had to be notified.
We started by blocking off the hallway of the shed, planning to catch the birds in that small space before moving on to the much larger main area. When you’re catching barn swallows, it’s best to quietly lift a net over the front of the nest, then gently poke the birds so they wake up and fly in to it. That ship had sailed at this point- the birds on the nests were clearly awake and watching us. Instead, we blocked off the exits and started poking the birds so they would fly in to the nets. All of a sudden, the hallway was filled with flying forms, blurry and unfocused as they wove in and out of headlamp beams. At first I thought these extra shapes were fledglings- young swallows that had been startled and flown out of their nests. We soon realized our mistake- the small gray shapes swooping over our heads were bats.
Shit. Bats. Bats are terrifying to catch in your nets because they have sharp teeth and carry nasty diseases, and now we had 8 of them, all tangled up among our swallows. We extracted the birds, and then Amanda put on our heavy leather bat gloves (yes, we have those) and held their pointy, bite-y heads while I disentangled wings from nets with bare hands. Such was the scene outside the shed that we had barred to door to prevent more people coming in, so there was considerable surprise in the gathered crowd when Amanda started cracking the door and throwing bats in their faces.
After dealing with the bat situation, we turned to the rest of the birds in the big shed, chasing after them with nets, climbing over mounds of junk, and generally causing a huge ruckus. When the dust settled, we had 13 swallows in bags and were only 2 birds shy of our 30 bird goal. I was relieved. The night had been epic, and it was only half over. Amanda looked me and said “uh, you have bird poop on your face.”
After dealing with the bat situation, we turned to the rest of the birds in the big shed, chasing after them with nets, climbing over mounds of junk, and generally causing a huge ruckus. When the dust settled, we had 13 swallows in bags and were only 2 birds shy of our 30 bird goal. I was relieved. The night had been epic, and it was only half over. Amanda looked me and said “uh, you have bird poop on your face.”
Badran opened up his small grocery kiosk for us, and we banded birds on the floor, surrounded by bottles of coke, snickers bars and cans of Pringles (the most ubiquitous American food exports, in my experience). Someone brought us tea and a plate of flaky pastries, gooey with honey. We banded birds til nearly midnight, and when the last bird flew off we took relieved photos with our local helpers. We had found a few more nests earlier in the day, including at a rice mill next door, so we had birds to come back for. It looked like this trip to Egypt was going to be a success.
Several of the local men had stayed to watch our entire banding session, and afterwards Mamdouh said they had described Amanda as “very focused” and me as “moving very fast, and always knowing where everything is.” While we were clearly foreigners, the men said that he and Basma were “definitely Egyptian.”
-Liz
-Liz