The extra Nile

THE tour-leader gene was rampant as I walked the Old Winter Palace gardens in Luxor.

I just had to show someone a male Nile Valley sunbird I had spotted in a flowering bush and collared a couple sitting on a bench. Happily they were as excited as I was and raved about the stunner (they have bright-yellow underparts, iridescent dark-blue backs and a long, spiky tail).

'We watch birds at home in Yorkshire but I've never seen one of those,' my female victim said.

'Too right, missus,' I thought (I was evacuated to the Independent Socialist People's Republic of Sheffield as a small boy). 'They are found only in the Nile Valley, as their name suggests.'

That's the great thing about my job. I show people things, explain why they are even more fascinating than one might think, and then sit back and enjoy the response.

The whole Nile Valley – as opposed to the sunbird alone – is brilliant. I'd thought that Machu Picchu, in Peru, was the best man-made place on earth, but that title is under some pressure now.

It's not just the pyramids, temples, tombs, unbelievable riches and history that goes back to the beginning of man's influence on the world. It also has a fantastic role in the natural history of Europe and Russia, including Siberia.

The Nile Valley is a gigantic highway, channelling millions of migrating birds from their winter quarters in west Africa up to their breeding grounds.

A recent trip there yielded flocks of migrating white pelicans, storks (sadly, no babies spotted slung from their undercarriages), gulls, warblers and swallows, all following the Nile northwards.

Years ago, I sat on a pass in the hills outside Eilat with Israeli ornithologists who were counting steppe buzzards flying up into eastern Europe and Russia. They logged 120,000 that morning, streaming through in flocks of between 50 and 300 birds. All had come down the Nile Valley before crossing into Israel.

They represented a serious threat to Israeli jet fighters and the sightings were passed continually to the local air base by radio. The same is done with flocks of storks and pelicans, which could also down a jet if struck.

Many of the species that migrate through Egypt have been recorded in the hieroglyphs painted on the insides of pharaohs' tombs. Ancient Egyptians certainly knew their birds.

The Valley of the Kings boasts many tombs, the most famous of which – though not nearly the most impressive – is that of Tutankhamen, the 19-year-old pharaoh whose intact tomb and its amazing contents were discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter.

When we visited last month there was a small flock of trumpeter finches drinking from a water bowl close to the entrance of this tomb. They are beautiful true-desert finches, with pink beaks, bodies and a red flash in the wings.

It is the combination of antiquities and wildlife that makes Egypt such a brilliant destination.

Karnack Temple outside Luxor – the ancient city of Thebes, renamed – is one of the great wonders of the world. It was built in 1500BC and is breathtaking in its size and complexity, mind-boggling in the craftsmanship and skill of the builders. For example, it has 134 vast columns, each 75ft high, and bearing a cornice so large that 50 people could stand on it (getting vertigo, no doubt).

The columns are engraved with hieroglyphs and the whole supported a great roof.

The best part for me was a statue of Tutankhamen gazing down on the many visitors.

I saw the Nile from the luxury of a cruise boat which sailed from Luxor to the temple at Dandara and then upstream to Aswan.

Early mornings on deck gradually saw me build up a list of more than 100 different birds, of which Pallas's gull (looking like a huge black-headed gull) was probably the highlight.

They breed in central Asia and are not recorded regularly by European birders.

Building the pyramids was an engineering feat of outstanding proportions – more than 2.5million limestone blocks built as a rectangle with four triangular faces went into the Great Pyramid. Around its base were five pits, each containing the parts of a boat, dismantled to be used by Pharaoh Khufu in the afterlife.

One of the pits had been opened and the contents assembled to recreate a 4,000-year-old timber craft known as the Solar Boat, which is now housed in its own museum.

As tombs, the pyramids were a disaster. Each was built as a life's work by the pharaoh who, on his death, was eventually mummified and buried in it. Filled with his personal belongings and other artefacts the dead king would need in the afterlife, each was sealed after the burial ceremony.

Their big problem was that the structures were adverts to grave robbers. 'Here is vast treasure for the taking,' they proclaimed.

Often the goods were removed and the mummified corpse thrown out into the desert, thus ending the dead pharaoh's time in paradise.

The solution devised by the later pharaohs was to be mummified and then buried underground with the tomb sealed and hidden.

Thus the Valley of the Kings was devised. It became the final resting place of many pharaohs, but sadly the tomb raiders still managed to find most of them.

Tutankhamen's was the exception until 1922 when Carter discovered it. He sent a telegram to his sponsor, Lord Caernarvon, who went to Egypt for the moment its seal was broken.

The stunning artefacts are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and a visit was the highlight of my trip. The craftsmanship is unbelievable and everyone should go to see the exhibition at least once.

His iconic gold death mask, which is so well known the world over, is breathtaking.

It fitted over Tutankhamen's mummified head and into the first of three anthropoid coffins.

That was encased by the second, which went into the third, a lot like Russian dolls. The mask contains 11kg of solid gold and there is up to 22kg on each coffin.

The coffins were then encased in three gold-covered boxes. When Carter found the tomb, he must have wept with joy and amazement.

A box of dried seeds, found in the tomb, was discovered recently in a secret sealed alcove in Caernarvon's former home – a 'spoil' of the tomb. It is believed he may have removed other, more valuable artefacts which were sold into private collections.

There were too many other stunning things to remember, let alone pick out, but one was outstanding: a vast tablet of stone depicting Mernptah, son of Rameses II, receiving a victory sword from the gods after throwing Egypt's many enemies out of the country. These were listed in detail and included the first and only reference ever found to the Israelites.

The stone was dated around 2,000BC and it is thought that the event refers to the Old Testament story of the Exodus, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea... quite an incredible connection.