This weekend (precisely from the 25th of October to the 27th of October), I got on a trip to the Oualidia region, renowned for its waterbirds but also for being the last place where seeing an Andalusian buttonquail is possible in the Western Palearctic, that was on the back of my head since months now but had to unfortunately be cancelled the first time I tried undertaking it because of a car breakdown.
It was my first real birding trip in Morocco outside of the Souss-Massa region (where I live) and it had three main goals:
- Trying to FINALLY see wild Marbled teals
- Twitch 2 vagrant species (Long-billed dowitcher and Blue-winged teal) that were reported at the two hotspots I planned to visit
- Get as many lifers and additions for the lifelist as possible and maybe finally reach the 150 wild species seen margin in year
Even though I failed at accomplishing the first two, I found this trip to be very successful, firstly because Marbled teals don't seem to actually exist based on how much luck I've had with them, that the vagrants have both been reported for more than 10 days in areas where it's very hard to find them and finally because the third goal was more than achieved:
25/10/2019
BIRDS:
(A7 Highway Toll, Amskroud)
145 - Blue rock thrush, Monticola solitarius
(Salines de Oualidia, Oualidia)
146 - Little stint, Calidris minuta
147 - Common snipe, Gallinago gallinago
148 - Northern shoveler, Anas clypeata
149 - Spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa striata
(Jardin de la Lagune, Oualidia)
150 - Common barn owl, Tyto alba
26/10/2019
BIRDS:
(Marais d'El Hotba, Ouled Salem)
151 - Bluethroat, Luscinia svecica
(Daya Dar Bouazza, Dar Bouazza)
152 - Western swamphen, Porphyrio porphyrio
All lifers were ones I had long been waiting for and some I was hopeful to see because I knew they were common in the places I was going to (Little stint, Common snipe, Spotted flycatcher for ex.). A Blue rock thrush on a highway toll out of all places was great as was my second ever owl species and the unexpected and unplanned 30min visit to Dar Bouazza that gave me my first views of Western swamphen! A lot of those species are harder to see in Souss than they are up north so I am happy to have gotten all of them.
Other highlights include a whooping 42 (!) Barbary partridges seen on the long travel to Oualidia, beating my record of species seen at a single spot; namely 50 species at Les Salines de Oualidia and in general some very fun birding that made this trip extremely enjoyable.
And with that, the 150 bird species mark I had set at the beginning of the year is reached!
