MERZOUGA – TALIOUINE VIA AGZE AND THE DRAA VALLEY
- a trip organised by Bird ID based in Norway, to test your ID skills go to : www.birdid.no
It was another glorious day of sunshine, however we spent most of it in the bus travelling over 400 kilometers. We did stop several times but only added I new species to our list but we did see some excellent birds along the way.
We set off at 8am and drove the 37 kilometers to Rissani, during the trip we made a couple of unofficial stops to look at Cream Coloured Coursers, Desert lark and Hoopoe Lark, we also saw several Brown-necked Ravens.
Our first official stop was just outside Rissani on the Alnif road at the river. There we hoped to find Sandgrouse coming to drink but alas, not one turned up. We did see several interesting species such as Moroccan Wagtail, Great White Egret and Ruddy Shelduck.
Between Rissani and Agze we stopped to watch a pair of soaring Lanner Falcons, a couple of Long-legged Buzzards and a pair of Bonelli’s Eagles. We bought our lunch in Agze and ate it just a couple of kilometers outside of the town. From there we travelled to Taznakht, noting Black, Magreb and over 40 White Crowned Wheatears! We stopped to look for sandgrouse just west of Taznakht and found only two Black-bellied. A couple of Desert Wheatears and Desert Larks were also seen.
A BLACK REDSTART - THE ONLY PICTURE I TOOK TODAY
We finally arrived at Taliouine at 5pm where we dropped our luggage into our rooms and set off for a bit of birding, making use of the excellent afternoon light whilst it lasted. We saw many common species all of which had been seen before by some of the group, but some species were seen for the first time by others, these species included Spanish Sparrow, Great Tit, Serin and Laughing Dove.
We ate a lovely chicken Tagine before retiring for the night, our bird log only included one new species for the trip and that was Sand Martin.
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