The Protected Area of Zaranik
The Top-Notch Bird Watching Spot
Zaranik Protected Area is located at the eastern end of Lake Bardawil and encompasses an eastern extension of that lake: the Zaranik Lagoon. The lagoon is shallow, with numerous small islets scattered throughout it, most of which are covered with dense saltmarsh vegetation.
Extensive mudflats and saltmarshes are found along the lagoon’s shores, merging into sabkha and sand-dunes further inland. A salt works were established at Zaranik in the early 1980s, prior to its declaration as a protected area, consisting of a pumping station, extensive evaporation pools and saltpans. The facility only became active in 1997.
This protected area represents the major key routes of the immigrations of the birds around the world and it links the three continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Birds use Zaranik as a bridge to pass between these continents especially during the seasons of autumn and spring for many reasons and this is why Zaranik is a marvelous location for bird watching.
The birds immigrate from Eastern Europe, the North West of Asia, Russia, and Turkey in its way to Middle and the southeast of Africa to escape the cold weather and seek for their new sources of food that are available in the Protected Area of Zaranik.
Some of these birds reside in some of the Egyptian lakes like Baradwil Lake, situated near the Protected Area of Zaranik and other lakes along the East Bank of the Suez Gulf.
Two hundred and forty-four species of birds have been officially recorded in the Protected Area of Zaranik. These species include swans, ducks, herons, cattle egret, stork Mirza chicken, falcons, quail, buzzard, and sandpipers, gulls and terns, lunar, crow, hoopoe, and rubella.
The geological characteristics of the Protected Area of Zaranik are also distinctive because the area belongs to the wetlands in the basin of the Mediterranean Sea and the Protected Area is situated in the Eastern section of Bardawil Lake.
The Protected Area of Zaranik includes many sections like the Zaranik Lake, the desert islands, and the sand bulkhead that separates this area from the Mediterranean Sea.
This protected area represents the major key routes of the immigrations of the birds around the world and it links the three continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Birds use Zaranik as a bridge to pass between these continents especially during the seasons of autumn and spring for many reasons and this is why Zaranik Protected Area is a marvellous location for bird watching.
The birds immigrate from Eastern Europe, the North West of Asia, Russia, and Turkey in its way to Middle and the southeast of Africa to escape the cold weather and seek for their new sources of food that are available in the Protected Area of Zaranik.
Vast numbers of passerines and near-passerines also arrive at the coast, as they do everywhere along the Egyptian Mediterranean shoreline, but here hunting and persecution is illegal and controlled. There are around 270 species of birds who visit the Zaranik Protected Area every year. These include herons, wading birds, gulls, hooks, quail, pasture, and many other kinds of birds.
