TRANSFER FROM OURIKA VALLEY TO BOULMALNE DADES WITH STOPS AT OURIKA - AIT OURIR - QUARZAZATE RESERVOIR
WEATHER: dull and overcast to start, with light rain. Later sunshine and clouds, Temp 5-25C
We never list many species on this long transfer day, but we manage to stop a few times and get a few newcomers for our tally.
Before breakfast we stood on the terrace and waited for the Levaillant's Woodpecker to arrive on the dead tree....... it never arrived! So, we enjoyed watching the Blackcaps and the Bulbuls eating the ivy berries instead. It was just after 8am when we left the hotel for our journey across the mountains into the desert region.
Common Bulbul enjoying the ivy berries
We made two stops in the Ourika Valley to look for the woodpecker and we saw it on both occasions but the bird was distant and showed only in flight. During the fist stop we had great views of both Serin and Hawfinch, in fact the Hawfinch sightings went into double figures! A flock of about 40 European Bee-eaters flew over us whilst we stood at the roadside and several Cattle Egrets put in an appearance too.
our last view of the Ourika Valley
Our first offical stop was just beyond the town of Ourika at a place where the roadside verge slopes away and you have superb views of miles and miles of cultivated land, olive groves and hedges. Unfortunately the scrub area had been ruined, it had been ploughed up and 90% of the scrub was gone. We stayed for a short while after finding our target bird, the Barbary Partridge, we saw a pair of Stonechats, one Corn Bunting, one Sardinian Warbler and a few Margeb Magpies. As we stepped down from the bus we found a Woodchat Shrike, we saw four more during our scanning of the fields and a single Black Kite flew over us.
Woodchat Shrike
At the Ait Ourir crossroads we stopped to use the facilities at a garage, from the car park we saw our first White Storks, lots of Common Swifts, House Sparrows, Spotless Starlings and a Booted Eagle. A few kilometers further on we stopped again to scan a ridge above a pine forest and there we saw a few more raptors.
It was a regular spot to stop and look for Bonelli's Eagles and sure enough after a short wait one flew right over the top of us. It stayed in view for about twnety minutes and eventually a second bird joined it, they circled over the pine trees and up above the ridge showing really well. Also, about a dozen Booted Eagles also appeared and we saw a couple of pairs of Kestrels. We heard Common Crossbill calling from the pines but we never got a view of one.
Bonelli's Eagle - record shot
Moving on, we spent the next hour climbing up the winding road, we travelled up and over the Tizi-n-Tichka Pass without stopping. It was 1pm when we arrived at our usual lunch stop, a roadside cafe. During lunch we found our first House Bunting, it was singing from the roof! During a short walk in some pine woods we had good views of Serin and to our great surprise, a LEVAILLANT'S WOODPECKER started calling!! We tracked it down and the bird flew right over the top of our heads and landed quite close on a pine tree. Wowza, we never expected that!
the pine woods where we saw the Levaillant's Woodpecker
A few butterflies went onto the list: Greenish Black-tip, Small White, Clouded Yellow, African Grass Blue, Marbled White and a few of the group saw a Plain Tiger.
We now spent a few hours in on the road as we drove out of the mountains and across flat, stoney plains. We drove through Quarzazate and at 5pm we turned off the road to view the huge reservoir, the Barrage El Mansour Eddahbi. Last year we saw over 20 species on and around the water, this year, the water level was much higher and far fewer birds were present.
the Quarzazate Reservoir was quite full of water.
A large raft of Great Cormorants were the only birds on the water, along the shoreline we found half a dozen Kentish Plovers, a single Common Ringed Plover, a single Common Sandpiper and Bruce found a single Collared Pratincole, a lifer for him!
Yellow Wagtail, flavissimo
In the scrub and surrounding tamarisk we found about 30+ Yellow Wagtails of various races, flava, iberiae and favissimo. We also found Crested Larks, Great Grey Shrikes, our first Bonelli's Warbler, our first Subalpine Warbler and our second Western Olivaceous Warbler. We heard Bee-eaters calling and one of them was the call of the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater. We spent sometime trying to track down the bee-eaters but they remained elusive, we could not pin down the Blue-cheeked. Large numbers of Sand Martins filled the sky with Barn Swallows and a couple of Little Egrets flew over the water.
Moroccan Uromastyx or Spiney-tailed Agama
The light began to fade and we still had an hour to travel, we left just after 6pm and arrived at our hotel in Boulmalne Dades at 7:15pm, after a quick freshen up we went straight down to a lovely dinner.