MOROCCO - FEB 13TH DAY 7 OF 10

MERZOUGA – RISSANI VIA KASBAH SAID

- a trip organised by Bird ID based in Norway, to test your ID skills go to : www.birdid.no

Our last full day in the desert region started at 7am with a Moroccan breakfast of bread, jams, pancakes and honey. It was a chilly start to the day with a very cold wind.

GREAT GREY SHRIKE - Elegans, subspecies

Our morning objective was to catch up with the Desert Warbler which had eluded us so far. We searched a couple of wadis along the main road to Rissani without success. We then drove to a large wadi adjacent Kasbah Said, where after just a few minutes we finally found a Desert Warbler, the bird showed very well and all the group had great views of it. During our earlier search we also found another Magreb Wheatear (female) and all the usual desert species.

AT LAST - THE DESERT WARBLER IS FINALLY FOUND!!

We stopped and bought our lunch as we passed through Rissani, we then travelled to the outskirts of the town to look for the Long-billed Crested Lark.

LONG-BILLED CRESTED LARK

Along the way a Hoopoe flew up from the side of the road and we all got out of the bus to watch it. We found the Long-billed Crested Lark very easily and in the same area we saw Great Grey Shrike, Laughing Dove, Common Chiffchaff, Common Bubul, Common Kestrel and several other species.

The rest of the day was spent in the hills along the Alnif road where we spent a few hours looking for sandgrouse, we also spent a good deal of time along the river.

A VIEW OF THE RIVER SHOWING BLACK STORK, GREAT WHITE EGRET, GREY HERON AND LITTLE EGRET.

At the river during two visits we found: Great White Egret, Little Egret, Black Stork, Little Grebe, Ruddy Shelduck, Common Kingfisher, Cetti’s Warbler, Moroccan Wagtail, White Wagtail and another Hoopoe.

RUDDY SHELDUCK

During our trek in search of sandgrouse we found a beautiful male Magreb Wheatear, Desert Wheatear, Desert Lark, Bar-tailed Desert Lark, Spectacled Warbler, Tristram’s Warbler, Barbary Falcon, Black Kite and up to 30 Brown-necked Ravens.

Our last bird of the day was, again, the diminutive Little Owl, we found two of them perched as we passed through the suburbs of Rissani.