A SECOND DAY IN THE DESERT REGION AROUND THE DUNES AND MERZOUGA
WEATHER: a very changeable day, we started with strong winds, heavy clouds and rain. Around 8am it cleared followed by light wind and sunny all day. At 5pm the strong wind and rain returned, the sand began to lift too!
We made a very early start for our very exciting Land Rover 4x4 excursion into the dunes and beyond. We had several targets species: Sandgrouse, Egyptian Nightjar, Desert Sparrow, Bar-tailed Lark, Hoopoe Lark and Desert Warbler.
The first hour was spent driving from one site to another looking for the Desert Sparrow, we had a brief glimpse of two but only a few of us saw them. At one stage, when we were out of the cars, we saw Spotted Sandgrouse in the sky, two of them dropped down to the ground not far from us. We drove to them and found that a burst water pipe had created a small pool, the sandgrouse were drinking from it.
Crowned Sandgrouse taking a drink
Parking at a sensible distance we staked out the small pool and soon enough dozens of sandgrouse came down to drink, we saw some of them soaking their breast feathers to carry water back to their chicks. We had a super time watching Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse, then we were amazed to see three Pin-tailed Sandgrouse drop down, how cool was that?
a pair of Crowned Sandgrouse
Spotted Sandgrouse were the first sandgrouse seen today
Spotted Sandgrouse left, it has a pin-tail, and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse right, it doesn't have a pin-tail (female)
In the meantime three different Hoopoe Larks were singing and performing their kamakazi display flights, another amazing sight. We also saw Northern Wheatear, Desert Wheatear, White-crowned Wheatear and Bonelli’s Warbler.
Hoopoe Lark
Hoopoe Lark singing just before it flies up and performs its display
a poor effort of a flight shot of the Hoopoe Lark
I had to drag the group away from the sandgrouse to look further for the Sparrow, we spent an hour looking and finally found some. A female was found first, she led us to another three birds, two pairs we assumed.
The first female was tackling a large caterpillar which we assumed had a poisonous skin because she ate everything but the skin before flying off. We tracked her to a small row of acacia trees where two males and another female was found, one of the males was collecting nesting material.
female Desert Sparrow with a caterpillar skin and another caterpillar watching from a twig
this caterrpillar is dicing with death!
the sparrow swinging the caterpillar skin to eat its insides, yuk!
Steve then found a Roller in one of the other trees, wowza, what a beauty. Our first House Martins were seen with lots of Swallows and even more European Bee-eaters, dozens of them. We also noted that many Willow Warblers were around us and we counted no end of Woodchat Shrikes.
this European Roller was a nice find by Steve.
We searched some promising sites for Desert Warbler and discovered Spectacled, Subalpine and Bonelli’s Warblers, as well as our first Bar-tailed Desert Lark. The sky always had something interesting flying in it, we saw Marsh Harrier, Booted Eagle, Common Kestrel, Common Swift, House Martin, Barn Swallows and the ever present Brown-necked Raven.
Late in the afternoon we made our way across the desert to the home of a local guy who leads groups to roosting Egyptian Nightjars. He joined us as we drove for a few miles from his house before we stopped and walked for a while. During our walk we flushed a Bar-tailed Lark which landed in full view and then we found a Desert Lark on the same rocky slope.
We were shown a roosting nightjar and to our great delight it had two chicks with it, absolutely brilliant, a great bird to see. We left the birds in peace and made our back to the cars. We dropped off the nightjar-guy before making our way back to our hotel. We arrived at 1:30pm – we had been out since 6:30am – a long time dashing about around the dunes.
sleeping beauties - the Egyptian Nightjar with two chicks
One piece of irony was that as we got back to our hotel we found a pair of Desert Sparrows just outside the entrance way, doh!!
We had lunch on the terrace of Café Yasmina, watching the birds on the lake (which was decreasing in size everyday). We saw Cattle and Little Egrets, Ruddy Shelducks, our first Moorhen, Little Ringed Plover, dozens of Yellow Wagtails, White Stork, a couple of Marsh Harriers and the usual warblers feeding in the tamarisk trees.
At 3pm we drove off towards Rissani and stopped at a large wadi which was covered in bushes and scrub, perfect for Desert Warblers. We walked a couple kilometers and found none! We saw lots of Woodchat Shrikes, a couple of Hoopoe larks, the usual warblers and both Northern and Desert Wheatears.
The sky clouded over, really dark clouds were heading our and the wind picked up! A storm was coming, we jumped back onto the bus just in time, it pelted down and the wind lifted the sand, it went very dark. We drove through heavy rain and by the time we got back to the hotel the worst was over and it settled down, the sun came out again.
wind-blown sand on the road as we drove back
I have never before seen a rainbow over the Erg Chebbi Sand dunes in the Sahara Desert