Back from Morocco

25 December 2010.

After yesterday, today, we get up early to go to Ouarzazate airport.

There we see our last Moroccan birds: yellow-legged gulls.

This is a yellow-legged gull video from Italy, showing both adult and juvenile gulls.

After changing planes at Casablanca, at 15:09 Central European Time we are near Bordeaux in southern France.

At 15:14 near La Rochelle.

At 15:50 north of the river Seine. Most of northern France is covered with much snow.

At 15:56 we are near Amiens.

Then, to Belgium and the Netherlands, both snowy as well.

At 16:10, we pass the Westerschelde river.

At 16:15, Tiengemeten island.

Transition plan for the BirdLife Morocco programme launched: here.

Related articles

• ‘The world upside down’: The rise of Spanish immigration to Morocco (csmonitor.com)
• Morocco Rose Festival: the land of red and pink (telegraph.co.uk)
• Morocco film searches out Jews who left for Israel (miamiherald.com)

Moroccan desert and river birds

24 December 2010

Today is our last full day in Morocco.

From Merzouga, where we went to the sandy desert yesterday, we go to the region around Erfoud.

8:15: brown-necked raven flying.

10:45: white-crowned wheatear sitting on a heap of sand.

A great grey shrike on a shrub.

A cattle egret drinking in a ditch in an oasis.

12:15: two adult and one juvenile long-legged buzzard sitting on the roof of an abandoned building. A feral pigeon sitting next to them.

This is a house bunting video recorded in Morocco.

12:30: near a restaurant entrance in Boulmane de Dades, house buntings and common bulbul.

At 15:40, we are back at the river near Ouerzazate. Many shoveler ducks.

Grey herons.

At least two squacco herons.

Little grebes.

Many ruddy shelducks.

Chiffchaffs in the reedbeds.

Barn swallows.

Teal.

A snipe flying.

Finally: wood sandpipers.

Erg Chebbi desert birds of Morocco

23 December 2010.

After yesterday, today to the Erg Chebbi sandy desert.

A juvenile white-crowned wheatear on a building.

Brown-necked raven flying.

Then, a hoopoe lark.

This video is called Singing [Greater] Hoopoe Lark at Bir Sultane (Pipeline Road), Tunisia.

A bar-tailed lark.

A flock of crowned sandgrouse flying.

Then, a rare desert bird: an eastern crowned wheatear.

A common bulbul at an oasis.

A small bit of water. A frog moving away quickly.

A group of trumpeter finches.

Under a shrub, one of few places where is shade, sits a pharaoh eagle owl.

Later, a great grey shrike in one of the few trees.

Birds around Merzouga: here.

To the Atlas mountains and desert

18 December 2010.

After yesterday, today, a long bus journey from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to Ouarzazate in the mountains, 1,160 metres high.

Rain in the morning.

White storks on a TV antenna.

At 7:37, we are at El Gfifat. A bit further, a kestrel on a lamppost. Magpies.

A bridge over the Souss river just before Taroudant. A male Moussier’s redstart.

A great tit. Four white storks on the other river bank.

A pied wagtail near the river.

A greenfinch on a wire.

A laughing dove on another wire.

A spotless starling on a telephone pole.

A bit later, in the old walled town of Taroudant: house buntings mix with house sparrows on the busy market.

A bit of rain. Collared dove.

Near the town gate, a kestrel under a white stork nest.

On a TV tower just outside the city center, a lanner falcon eating a pigeon.

12:25: a dead great grey shrike along the motorway.

This is a black-shouldered kite video.

At 12:55, a black-shouldered kite on a tree.

At 13:15 at Aoulouz near the river, a long-legged buzzard.

Cattle egrets fly to the remains of an old bridge.

A little egret.

A kestrel tries to drive away a much bigger long-legged buzzard.

On the mountains, in big Arabic script: “God, Fatherland, the King”. And “Long live the king”.

A praying mantis on a tree in a mountain village.

In the evening, we arrive in Ouarzazate.

Related articles

• taroudant and tiout excursion (sud-aventures-tours.com)
• The Road To Ouarzazate (worldviastandby.wordpress.com)
• Morocco Rose Festival: the land of red and pink (telegraph.co.uk)
• The Desert’s Door (worldviastandby.wordpress.com)
• desert from agadir (ecolodge-adventures.com)
• Amorous avocets and parasitic fungi (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)

Sanderlings and stone curlews

17 December 2010.

From the reservoir, we continued to a rocky coast near a fishing village south of Agadir, Morocco.

Yellow-legged gulls.

Below, close to the floodline, whimbrels and sanderlings feeding.

This is a whimbrel video.

Ringed plovers and Kentish plovers.

Four turnstones.

An Arctic skua.

As we leave, twenty stone curlews in the sand dunes.

Read about stone curlew migration.

Stone curlew photo: here.

A bit further, cattle egrets follow a flock of sheep.

Two Whimbrels tracked by scientists from a US university have been shot by hunters on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, highlighting the continuing lack of protection for migratory shorebirds in this important part of their flyway: here.

Related articles

• Stone curlews died underweight because of ‘cold spring’ (worldwaders.wordpress.com)
• Ruff, redshank and wigeon (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• White eastern curlew in Australia (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Meet Postel, The Tagged Whimbrel (worldwaders.wordpress.com)
• Marsh tits, parakeets, starlings and sanderlings (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Populations of wading birds halved (scotsman.com)
• Oregon parks department, city of Gearhart developing shorebird plan (oregonlive.com)

Birds of Oued Souss, Morocco

17 December 2010.

Today, after yesterday, our third full day in Inezgane near Agadir, Morocco.

Cattle egrets flying over Inezgane in the morning.

This is a cattle egret video from Scotland.

Lots of apartment houses in Inezgane and elsewhere in Morocco (and in, eg, Turkey) have lots of satellite TV dishes. Many immigrants from Morocco in western Europe have satellite dishes as well. Xenophobes hate that, claiming that the immigrants have those dishes because they supposedly hate west European society and its media (never mind that those xenophobes usually hate their own country’s TV as well, for being supposedly “Leftist”). The xenophobes claim these satellite dishes are also a sign of supposed “Islamic fundamentalism” (rubbish, as most really ultra orthodox Muslims, like ultra orthodox Christians, see TV as “satanic”). The satellite dishes in Morocco prove, for the umpteenth time, the foolishness of xenophobia. Are the dishes in Morocco, supposedly, a sign of Moroccans hating Morocco; or hating Islam?

Like on our first day, we go to the Oued Souss delta.

Greenfinch sound.

On the sandbanks, grey herons, little egrets, and fourteen spoonbills.

A black-winged stilt and a curlew.

Again, Dorcas gazelle on the other side of the river, like two days ago. Four animals.

A great grey shrike in a tree.

To the left of the shrike in the same tree, a greenfinch.

A chiffchaff.

A black-tailed godwit on a sandbank.

Serin. Collared dove.

Common sandpipers.

A kestrel.

A Sardinian warbler.

Hermit ibises and whimbrel of Morocco

This video is called Bald Ibis Ibis chauve Geronticus eremita. Feeding along the road south of Tamri, Morocco, May 2010.

After the morning, in the afternoon of 15 december our aim is to see one of the most threatened birds in the world: the hermit ibis. Apart from very few individuals in Syria, all survivors of this species, once widespread, now live in the coastal region north of Agadir in Morocco.

However, first we see a little ringed plover. And an Audouin’s gull and great black-backed gulls.

Then, a beautiful songbird which is rather common in Morocco: a Moussier’s redstart.

An osprey flies over a river delta. A Kentish plover.

Further north, a bit more inland, a coot in a river. A painted lady butterfly.

On a steep hillside, a typical habitat for the species, a black wheatear.

Still no ibis. We go further north. Then, one ibis flying along the rocky coast.

After a walk, about twenty bald ibises resting on a sandstone coastal ledge, above ten meter above the sea level. They share that rock with great cormorants and a rock pigeon. Soon, the ibises fly away, to feed near the road.

Many holes in the sandy soil. They are dug by rodents, gerbils. There are various gerbil species in Morocco: one of them is the small Egyptian gerbil. However, these holes are by a bigger species. In Europe, wheatears often nest in rabbits’ burrows. Maybe the Moroccan wheatear species nest in gerbils’ burrows.

17:45. It is nearly sunset. Along the coast, gannets flying. And a whimbrel, calling.

Related articles

• Austria Aims For Mars Via Morocco (marsdaily.com)
• PHOTO: This Sheep Just Realized How Close It Is To Death (huffingtonpost.com)

Birds of Morocco, first morning

15 December 2010.

After our arrival yesterday, first today, the centre of Inezgane, a suburb of Agadir.

This is a common bulbul video.

We see birds living close to houses here. House sparrows. Collared doves. And a common bulbul.

Then, to the Oued Sous river delta. Many magpies: the blue-eyed Moroccan subspecies.

This video says about itself:

Quite common near Agadir. A very distinctive bird. Agadir, Morocco, May 2010.

An osprey eating a big fish on a sandbank.

Many grey herons and little egrets.

A black-tailed godwit.

A female stonechat in a bush.

A great grey shrike on top of another bush.

Spanish sparrows in a leafless tree.

A black-winged stilt. A spoonbill.

A male stonechat.

On a wall, a black redstart.

Ten meter to its left on that wall, a pied wagtail.

A Sardinian warbler.

A migrant from Europe, a chiffchaff.

A kestrel flying to an electric light pole.

A common sandpiper.

On the other side of the river, three Dorcas gazelle.

Over a hundred serins in a leafless tree.

A Barbary falcon sitting high in a higher tree.

A bluethroat.

A great egret. Greater flamingos.

Four Barbary partridges on a stony hill.

A redshank and a black-winged stilt flying away together.

Barn swallows flying.

We arrive at the Atlantic ocean.

On the beach: lesser black-winged gulls and yellow-legged gulls.

Five sanderlings flying.

Two grerat cormorants.

A juvenile gannet above the sea.

Sandwich terns near the river mouth.

Black-headed gulls.

As we walk back: a squacco heron and a curlew.

Birds in the province around Agadir: here.