Day 6 - March 23RD - Café Yasmina and the surrounding areas
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| Saharan Olivaceous Warbler |
Another
early start found us on the terrace of Yasmina watching the bird ringers do
their work. Today we saw: Common Redstart, Common Nightingale, Woodchat Shrike,
Subalpine and Bonelli’s Warbler in the hand before we went in for breakfast.
The
rest of the morning was spent in the small villages and open areas near to Café
Yasmina looking for Desert Sparrow, we never saw one and the usual nesting box
near Yasmina had been damaged by kids. We did enjoy other bird sightings
throughout the morning which included several White Crowned Wheatears, Brown-necked
Ravens and hundreds of the ‘wrong’ sparrows – the House Sparrow.
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| the views from the terrace at yasmina - Erg Chebbi sand dunes in the background |
At
lunchtime we returned to Yasmina where we ate a Berber omelette's for lunch and
then at 2pm we went for an escorted 4*4 drive into the desert to continue our
search for the elusive Desert Sparrow. After several stops we eventually caught up
with colourful little fellow; at last, we had our final target ‘desert’ species
in the bag. During the drive we also found Woodchat Shrike, Hoopoe lark, Greater
Short-toed lark, Bar-tailed and Desert larks, Trumpeter Finch, Desert Wheatear
and Northern Wheatear.
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| White-crowned Wheatear (with and without the white crown) |
We
spent the last couple of hours of daylight watching from the terrace or walking
through the dry bed of the lake at Yasmina. We found many migrant species and
there seemed to be an influx of Bonelli’s Warbler and Subalpine Warblers; but
we also saw Saharan Olivaceous Warbler, Common Redstart, Willow Warbler, Tree
Pipit and to our great delight a Lanner Falcon flew over and circled above us
for a while, The Lanner was seen again some 30 minutes later as it tried to
take a Collared Dove but it missed.
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| Trumpeter Finch |
Finally
a nice flock of European Bee-eaters came in from the east and settled in the
tamarisk nearby, it was a lovely, colourful sight in the superb light of the
late afternoon. That was our last birding of the day so we disbanded and set
off to our rooms to prepare for dinner.
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| European Bee-eaters - resting up after crossing the Sahara Desert |
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