MOROCCO - DAY 7 - MARCH 12th 2014

TRANSFER FROM TALIOUINE TO AGADIR WITH STOPS AT AOULOUEZ GORGE -SOUS VALLEY ARGANA FOREST - OUED SOUS NATIONAL PARK.

WEATHER:  lovely sunshine all day, windy late afternoon.

We started our day's birding at 6:45am by walking in the cultivated area behind the Auberge where we  were staying. It was alive with birds, we added a few mew species to the list, the first of which was Woodchat Shrike. Lots of finches were singing, we saw both of the African sub-species of Greenfinch and Goldfinch as well as African Chaffinch.

Woodchat Shrike

The area where we walked consisted of small fields of Alfalfa and lots of olive and almond trees, with ditches and streams of water. There were also some areas of open scrub which held, Cirl & Corn Bunting, Sardinian Warbler, more shrikes and Spanish Sparrows, a Hoopoe was a nice bonus.

Aoulouez Gorge

After breakfast we drove some 30 kilometres towards AGADIR and stopped at a bridge over the river Sous and although the water level was quite low there were a lot of species there. A couple of Black Storks joined a throng of Little  & Cattle Egrets, there was also Grey Heron, Yellow, Grey, White and Moroccan Wagtails. A Common Kingfisher dashed by and was seen by a few of the group and a Common Cuckoo sat on a power line showing extremely well for all of us.



We walked into the Aoulouez Gorge and found more species; Meadow Pipit, House Bunting, Blackcap, Common Bulbul, Green Sandpiper, Peregrine Falcon, Common Kestrel and we also started noticing a small raptor passage overhead. A few Booted Eagles drifted over as did a another Black Stork, the two other Black Storks flew up to join it.

Common Cuckoo

Further into the gorge a small section of farmland held more birds, we found several Series , Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and we heard a Common Nightingale, but our best find was a small colony of roosting Black-crowned Night Herons.

Back on the bus we drove for another hour before stopping next to a large expanse of open scrub and farmland. We search for Black-winged Kite without success but we did find Bonelli's Warbler, Spectacled Warbler, Great-grey Shrike, Crested and Thekla Larks, Barbary Partridge and a few other species.

Further into the journey we stopped for lunch and then made a short stop at Touradant to look for Pallid Swifts, we never saw any swifts but we did see our first Spotless Starlings.

House Bunting

We finally arrived at AGADIR where we drove straight to the Owed Sous estuary, by now the wind had pocked and the temperature had dropped. However there were  ally of birds to see. We found six species of gulls including Slender-billed and Audouin's Gulls, lots of waders and a nice  flock of Greater Flamingos. Further down the estuary we saw Sandwich and Gull-billed Terns and another Peregrine Falcon. But our sightings were well down on previous visits because access was restricted to most of the area die to a Royal Golfing Tournament next to the King's Palace, the whole area was crawling with security guards who didn't like scopes, cameras and bins.



Lastly we drove round ro an area of open heath where found our last bird of the day, Stone Curlew, two birds were seen. It was now after 6pm and it was getting dark, so we hopped onto the bus and drove to our hotel just 5 minutes away.