(Finally getting around to putting a report of our trip on the net. Will also be putting a version elsewhere (probably the Go-South website) when a few other details get sorted...)
Western Sahara and Morocco 19th – 26th Feb 2009
Courtesy of reasonably inexpensive flights from that bane of the environmentalists, Ryanair, it came about that we made a winter birding foray into one of the far flung reaches of the Western Palearctic in search of some iconic birds and, hopefully, some great birding…
Thursday 19th Agadir and area.
There were three of us; two members of the party drove down from North Wales and exited the country from Stansted, whilst the other (me) flew from Marseille, already being in France, and arriving at the later time of 5pm. The airport at Agadir held a few nice birds, namely Common Bulbuls, a Blackbird and a redstart, which a little surprisingly turned out to be a female (1st winter?) Moussiere's Redstart. Feeding, or trying to, on some nondescript squashed car park food remains just as any common Starling or flying rat (Feral Rock Dove) would.
Into the birdingmobile (Opel Corsa from Autocar) with relative ease, given we all had fairly huge rucksacs and unfortunately no-one present was under 6 foot tall, and we were off….. to a garage restaurant for the first proper meal in at least a day. Not exactly hardcore, but then the others had already been to Oued Sousse for an hour or two (their flight had arrived in around midday) and scored Flamingo, Sardinian Warbler, ‘African’ Blue Tit (soon to be split?) and various waders etc, and we were expecting a full nights driving ahead of us……the real targets for the trip lay a lot further ahead.
Noshed up on what seemed relatively expensive Tagine type meals (but where was the couscous?), and we hit the road properly, successfully avoiding being hit or hitting anything on the crowded roads south of the city (this time - the others had apparently already knocked a motorcyclist over earlier in the afternoon… eek! …No actual damage done though fortunately….)
Hi Dan
Referring to the last part of the above, according to the latest edition of Owls of the World Lillith Owlet is a split from Little Owl and is not found in North Africa but occurs from southern Turkey down to Arabia. The subspecies which you saw according to this book would be glaux.
Cheers
Perry