Morocco/Western Sahara - Day 3

A civilised start breakfast at 8, leave 8.30am giving us time to catch up with House Bunting which Ian had spotted from his room the morning previously.    An Osprey flew past the hotel too. 

On the first part of our journey inland we saw a White Wagtail in the town along with the usual house sparrow, collared dove and feral pigeons.   

Our first scheduled stop on the road to Aousserd was at a small derelict building near Dijane which had an old water tower where a spring overflows down the side of the brickwork allowing lichens and mosses to grow. A leaking pipe also helps to keep the area wet and a small pool with tiny froglets had developed.   As we arrived a long-legged bustard flew off the tower and rested on a hillside nearby, a group of trumpeter finch flew off too - they were our target species here.   

Trumpeter Finch

However, there were other specialities to enjoy including a pair of (southern) Great Grey Shrike (elegans) with two young.   Presumably the frog/toad hatching had come at a good time for their demanding two.

Crowned sand-grouse were seen here, and we added black wheatear to our day list.  

Our next stop was to be lunch so we needed to get some kms under our tyres.   Brown necked raven, stone curlew, 

Eventually we stopped by the side of the road and sauntered through stunted dry trees and sparse grasses.  Desert sparrow, black-crowned sparrow-lark,  rested lark sp. and more shrike were here.  Barn swallow and sand Martin flew over, latter stayed with us feeding above our heads as we in turn enjoyed another excellent lunch, which included aubergine, peppers homemade Vegetable cake and flatbread.  Bananas and Moroccan biscuits completed the banquet all in the shade of a mimosa tree.

Desert Sparrow (juv)

Our journey continued in the afternoon with a couple of stops, one for potential golden sparrow - although we saw at least 300 of the desert variety our target did not appear.

Our Second stop of the afternoon was for Dunn’s lark and thanks to Ian most of us saw the underneath of one as it soared high above us - better views requested!   

Desert warbler XXXX????

Large squash-Type fruits lay in the ground, growing wild.   Apparently called donkey melons. They are poisonous to humans,

Back in the road and no more stops until our final destination.  At the very welcoming house we found white-crowned wheatear in the garden, presumably the rarer, bold sub-species.

With a couple of hours relaxation we took the opportunity of showers, walks and settling into our home for the next three days.

Dinner was once delicious with soup, fresh bread, olives and the most delicious warm coffee desert.   Sidi made tea the Moroccan way and the coffee was, as always, great.

After dinner (around 8:20) we left for our evening walk this was was to be to a relatively new site for golden nightjar.   The original plan was scuppered as the old area has not had the species recently so as it had been reported elsewhere we went out with an air of expectation.

Look! No Feathers . . 

The wind was whipping up sand as we drove and when we finally stopped our footsteps disturbed and encouraged a light sandblasting which left the skin feeling quite smooth with the occasional gritty patch!   

The clear sky gave one of the best night skies I have ever experienced.   The reduced light pollution away from the SE of the U.K. always reminds me what we are missing.   

There were literally millions of stars twinkling above us, and working out the difference in angle of the plough, finding Orion’s belt and searching for Cassiopeia all helped to pass the time away whilst we waited for the elusive nightjar to start singing/calling/flying.   

Although we were not successful this evening we did see hedgehog and African savanna hare.

Desert Hedgehog

Nightjar 1 -v- 0 Birders