The day started nicely with little cloud but it was very chilly, as the day wore on it clouded over and we drove through rain and some snow, the temperature dropped to 5C by the time we reached our destination.
It was a day of very little birding, we set off from Merzouga at 8am and made a short stop for birding in Rossini. We were hoping to catch up with the sub-species of Olivaceous Warbler that is only found in this desert region of Morocco, called appropriately, the Saharan Olivaceous Warbler. But none showed up, we did find our first Little Owl and we saw several Subalpine Warblers, a Chiffchaff, a couple of Serin and several other species.
From Rossini we drove out onto the Alnif road and for the next couple of hours we only stopped to look at passing raptors, sightings included Common Raven, Long-legged Buzzard, Black Kite, Marsh Harrier and a single Montagu's Harrier.
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| a 'first' for Wingspan - a group of all men! |
We ate lunch sitting out in the sunshine at Agdz before driving off for our second birding excursion. Wearied in an area of dry woodland with scattered Acacias, a few Palms and a few Almond trees.
Our sighting including a couple of very nice warblers which were new for our list. First a amle Western Orphean Warbler was found which was quickly followed by a sighting of Western Olivaceous Warbler. After a little more searching we returned to the bus and on the way back we found our second Isabelline Wheatear of the trip, how fantastic, a very rare and unusual sighting for Morocco, now seen twice.
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| scenery en-route |
More excitement followed about 2 hours later when drove through the town of Tazenakt, it had been raining extremely heavily and it looked like we had just missed it. Large puddles were everywhere and flash flooding could be seen in the fields. We came across about 100 Black Kites sitting by the side of the road and another 50 or so were feeding on a carcass in the fields, it was a great sight and was probably due to the heavy rain, the birds had been grounded. A short distance further on we saw an Osprey on a telegraph pole by the side of the road, again this bird was probably brought down by the weather.
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| Isabelline Wheatears - our second of the trip |
For the last 50 kilometres we passed through some high passes that had wring of snow and the rain continued all the way to Taliouine. We arrived just as it was getting dark, we had enough time for a shower before eating another lovely evening meal.
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