Another early start saw most of the group assembling on the terrace of the Kasbah Café Yasmina at 6am. The visiting ringing group was putting out their nets and whilst they were doing that we went for a short walk outside of the Kasbah walls. It was dull and overcast but not too windy, we found several species before returning to the terrace. A high flying Harrier went by and a much lower Brown-necked Raven, we also saw a couple of Northern Wheatears but not much else.
Back on the terrace the ringing group let us follow them on their rounds of the mist nets, they caught 3 birds, a House Sparrow and 2 Short-toed Larks, we watched the larks being ‘processed’ and ringed before their release.
By 8am we were off in the minibus heading towards Merzouga, we stopped a few time to watch some desert species which included: Hoopoe Lark, Bar-tailed Desert Lark, Desert Wheatear and small flocks of Short-toed Larks. We took a walk in dry river bed which had a lot of vegetation and it was there that we located a pair of Desert Warbler, they showed very well down to a few meters, a lovely sighting and another Moroccan must-see species in the bag.
We continued along the track to Merzouga and onto the main tarmac road, along this road we found two Brown-necked Ravens feeding on a rubbish tip, everyone had good views in the scope. To finish of this excursion we drove over to the lake, (we knew it had evaporated but we wanted to check out the surrounding area). By the time we arrived at the ‘lake’ the wind had picked up and it was very strong so we decided to call it a day, We drove back to Café Yasmina and had lunch at 1pm. The rest of the afternoon was ‘free time’ but most of the group took a walk into the tamarisks and spent a couple of hours watching migrant birds.
In the sheltered area of the dry lake we found many Chiffchaffs, Willow Warbler, Bonelli’s Warbler, Subalpine & Sardinian Warblers, Common Redstart and Woodchat Shrike. A lovely dinner was taken at 7:30pm.
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