MOROCCO - 10 DAY TOUR - DAY 6 - MARCH 22nd

Café Yasmina to several areas around Rissani

Another early start found us in the dry lake area of the grounds of Café Ysamina where we watched the Desert Sparrows for a while and then watched the ringing group handle several species that they had captured in their mist nets. These birds included Common Nightingale, Common Redstart, Woodchat Shrike and Eurasian Chiffchaff.

The rest of the day was spent visiting several areas in and around Rissani, along the way we saw Bar-tailed Desert Lark, many Brown-necked Ravens, Short-toed Larks and Trumpeter Finches.

INTREPID BIRDERS LOOKING UP AT THE EAGLE OWL

The first area we visited at Rissani had small cultivated fields surrounded by palm groves and as we passed through this area we saw a group of Fulvus Babblers! After jumping out of the bus we all had prolonged views of this special bird, another prize in the bag.

FULVUS BABBLER

The next landscape we encountered consisted of large sections of sloping rock stretching up to over 50 meters in height, these rocky slopes were surrounded by areas of open sand areas. It was in this rock face that we located our second target bird, the Pharoah Eagle Owl, this was a great find and one enjoyed by all. In this area we also found Long-billed Crested Lark, White-crowned Wheatear and Short-toed Lark.

We drove back through the centre of Rissani where we picked up our supplies for lunch, after we drove to the river Ghriz for a picnic. Unfortunately the river was almost dry so not many birds were found there. We did see Little Egret, Little Grebe, Grey Heron, Moroccan Wagtail, Black-eared Wheatear, Willow Warbler, Subalpine Warbler, Reed Warbler and over 40 Brown-necked Ravens were circling over the nearby rubbish dump.

The rest of the afternoon was spent searching other rocky areas for Barbary and Lanner Falcons but we only found Peregrine Falcon, the falcon was eating what looked like a Blue Rock Thrush. We also spent some time searching the open scrub areas for sandgrouse, in this aspect we had more success, we saw both Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse. The Spotted variety numbered 13 and required quite a walk in the heat of the afternoon, they wouldn’t allow close approach. However the Crowned Sandgrouse was so much easier on our feet.

We drove to another area of scrub and as we arrived we found 9 Crowned Sandgrouse by the side of the track, they were within 10 meters of the bus and we all enjoyed superb views of them. We even crept out of the bus and took some good close pictures of them.

CROWNED SANDGROUSE - SEE THE CROWN ON THE MALE UPPER PICTURE RIGHT

It was now getting late so we set off back to Café Yasmina and as we passed through Rissani we added Little Owl to our list as we saw 3 of them perched on old buildings.