Ruddy shelducks and black stork in Ouarzazate, Morocco

19 December 2010.

After yesterday, today, we are near the river which flows into Lake El Mansour Eddahbi, near Ouarzazate, Morocco.

White storks nesting on a kasbah ruin.

House sparrows and house buntings in the courtyard.

Snow on the Atlas mountain summits.

A stonechat on a palmtree.

Near the river, hundreds of white storks.

This is a video about a love affair betwen a male shelduck and a female ruddy shelduck.

Many ruddy shelducks on a muddy island. On that island, three moorhens behind a little egret.

Grey herons.

Crag martins.

A female marsh harrier.

Four spoonbills, with a great crested grebe swimming behind them.

A black stork: rare in Morocco. Black storks in the Netherlands: here.

A common sandpiper.

Five cattle egrets behind a tractor.

A male shoveler. Two shelducks.

An osprey lands.

In the afternoon, black-winged stilts in a wetland close to the river. At the end of the walk, a great grey shrike. Still later, a kestrel.

Distribution, breeding and time budget of Ruddy Shelduck in the Hauts Plateaux, Algeria: here.

Black storks in the Netherlands: here.

Monti, F., Nibani, H., Dominici, J.M., Idrissi, H.R., Thévenet, M., Beaubrun, P.C. & Duriez, O. (2013). The vulnerable Osprey breeding population of the Al Hoceima National Park, Morocco: present status and threats. Ostrich 84(3): 199–204: here.

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