MOROCCO 2013 - DAY 2 - 19TH MARCH

Day 2  - March 19^th  -  Ourika valley  to Boumalne Dades via the Tizi-n-Tichka Pass and Quarzazate Reservoir.

We were up bright and early, meeting in the hotel car park at 6am,  it was dark, misty with light drizzle and bouts of rain. Not good!

We drove a short distance to an area of open farmland, orchards and crops fields with tracks leading down to the river Ourika. We took one of the tracks just as it was getting light, we could hear many birds but at first we didn’t see any. Finally they started to show with views of Common Bubul, Wren, Robin, Greenfinch and African Chaffinch getting us off the mark. Our first African Blue soon followed and by this time we had heard our target species several times, the levaillant’s Woodpecker was calling constantly, in fact we could hear three or four of them. By the time we reached the river we had seen Blackcap, Nightingale and heard several Cetti’s Warblers. At the river we finally got to see two Levaillant’s Woodpeckers in flight, lots of Cattle Egrets and a couple of Grey Wagtails.

As the light improved so did the birding and it stopped raining but remained dull and overcast. A small flock of Hawfinches was nice, a Great-spotted Woodpecker drummed in the distance and another Nightingale showed very well, a couple more burst into song. 

We walked back to the main road as the cloud lifted and the sky brightened it was then that many birds began to appear. A flock of Red-rumped Swallows were joined by up to eight Little Swifts, a couple of Barn Swallows and a few House Martins.  We also added Serin, Goldfinch, Cirl Bunting and Common Cuckoo to our list. We returned to the hotel for a most welcomed breakfast.

After breakfast we set off for the long journey to Boumalne Dades. We made frequent stops the first of which was just passed the town of Ourika. The road was high above the surrounding farmland and we could see the Atlas Mountains shrouded in cloud behind us. Before too long we had notched up several new birds for the trip, the best of which was a flock of eight Moroccan Magpies with their blue face-patches and three Great-spotted Cuckoos, we had close views of one of these superb birds. We also got great views of Thekla lark, Sardinian Warbler and distant views of Corn Bunting.

One of the 3 G S Cuckoos seen today - this one came very close

Over the next 50 kilometers we stopped a couple of times to watch specific birds namely: Great Grey Shrike and Booted Eagle. We drove up through the Tizi-n-Tichka pass where we saw our first Black Wheatear and then down towards Quarzazate stopping for lunch just passed Taddart. Just before we stopped  a very large raptor was seen drifting down the valley, it had a white tail with a terminal black band and could have only been a Golden Eagle, alas only one person saw it.

During lunch we searched a pine wood for Crossbill but found, instead, a flock of Rock Sparrows, a Bonelli’s Warbler and we got good close views of the Moroccan sub-species of Coal Tit.

We took lunch sitting out in the warm sunshine on a terrace that had terrific views of the surrounding countryside. During lunch a small flock of  European bee-eaters flew passed and in the valley below we watched a Black Wheatear and saw a Barbary Partridge in flight. A couple of Common Ravens were seen mobbing a Booted Eagle just before a Black kite flew down the valley.

View from the terrace during lunch time

During the late afternoon we made two stops near the huge reservoir at Quarzazate, the first, at a small stream produced Green Sandpiper, Hoopoe (2), White-crowned Wheatear (2), Common Redstart, European Bee-eater (6) and lots of Common Bubul.  The second stop was near the shoreline of the Quarzazate reservoir which was a bit of a disappointment for me. In the past this venue has produced hundreds of birds of many species but this year the water level was so low that not many birds were seen at all and it was very windy which is NOT conducive to good birding.

A pair of Desert Wheatears flitted along the track as we approached and a after a few minutes we logged: Grey Heron (15), Ruddy Shelduck (12), Mallard (5), Gadwall (1), White Stork (1), Common Coot (1), Marsh Harrier (1),  Black Kite (1), Yellow Wagtail (2), White Wagtail (5), Water Pipit (1), Meadow Pipit (3), Greater Short-toed Lark (1), Little Ringed Plover (3), Common Redshank (1), Northern Wheatear (1) and not much else. 

The light began to fade so we jumped back onto the bus for the last leg of the journey to Boumalne Dades which took another 90 minutes, we arrived at 7:30pm and went straight down for dinner.