Grand Treasury of Petra— Photo: Adam Riley

Petra, in Jordan, is one of the world's most remarkable antiquities and is regarded as the most astounding ancient city left to the modern world. This early capital of the Nabataeans, which housed an estimated 30,000 people in its heyday, was hewn from the blood-red cliffs of the sandstone Sharrah Mountains.

Petra flourished as a vast trading city and controlled a large part of the "Incense Route," thus profiting from the trade between Greeks, Persians, Medes, and Egyptians. The Nabataeans were at their peak from the third century B.C. until the first century A.D., when Petra was annexed by the Romans. Several earthquakes and the rerouting of the main trade routes sidelined Petra until it was finally abandoned, remaining hidden and forgotten for many centuries until its dramatic rediscovery in the early nineteenth century by the German explorer Johann Burkhardt.

Petra's intricately carved, multi-story temples and buildings became familiar to many people when it was used as the set for the Harrison Ford movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and from the cover of National Geographic Magazine. This is, without a doubt, the most "must-see" site in the entire Middle East!

Set within a 20,000 hectare national park, Petra also offers some terrific birding. Notable species include Sooty Falcon, Sand Partridge, Mourning Wheatear, Scrub Warbler, Palestine Sunbird, Rock Sparrow, Sinai Rosefinch, Syrian Serin, and House Bunting. This region is also situated within a strong raptor migration route, so we can expect to see good numbers of these passage migrants as they soar overhead.