Been a while I haven't updated my list on here so I thought I would do so before the year ends. December has been a really good month of birding for me!
05/12/2020 (Embouchure de l'Oued Souss, Morocco)
BIRDS:
174 - Common shelduck, Tadorna tadorna
It started with a quick visit to my local spot with a few nice highlights (Common kingfisher, Bonelli's eagle, five duck species etc...) and one addition to the year list: a group of 12 Common shelducks, which at the time, was only the second time I had ever seen the species wild.
20/12/2020 (Estuaire de l'Oued Massa, Morocco)
BIRDS:
175 - Eurasian wigeon, Mareca penelope
176 - European robin, Erithacus rubecula
177 - Water pipit, Anthus spinoletta
Didn't have much time to bird until the start of the holidays but when I did bird, it was particularly fun! My first visit of Massa since August was a way for me to try to tick Little owl, which was one of the common species I was still lacking for the year, but also to maybe try and get the rare wintering Richard's pipit. It yielded neither but it was still full of higlights: 5 duck species including three Eurasian wigeons, a lifer for me, a Great spotted cuckoo, my second time seeing cranes, our two ibis species, two European robins (only my second time seeing the species in Morocco) and a lifer in the shape of Water pipit. All-in-all, 56 species and a really nice day that apparently wasn't over:
20/12/2020 (Near Draid, Morocco)
BIRDS:
178 - Little owl, Athene noctua
Instead of getting Little owl at my regular spot for them at Massa, where I had missed them the same morning, I just so happened to see one sit on a wall by the road! I was afraid to miss the species for the year so that was a welcome sight.
24/12/2020 (Estuaire de l'Oued Tamri, Morocco)
BIRDS:
179 - Great tit, Parus major
A particularly lifeless session at Tamri, with only 20 species recorded and nearly no ducks nor waders when I'm used to seeing multiple species there, still gave me an addition; namely Great tit, the second time I see them in Morocco.
24/12/2020 (near Aourir, Morocco)
BIRDS:
180 - Merlin, Falco columbarius
The best bird of the day was on the road though, as a Merlin, a lifer for me and a scarce winterer in Morocco (probably the hardest falcon species to get here), flew right above us with its distinctive fast wingflaps. With this, I only have one species of falcon left to see in Morocco to complete the set of Morocco's regular falcon species!
25/12/2020 (Issen, Morocco)
MAMMALS:
4 - Red fox, Vulpes vulpes
26/12/2020 (Issen, Morocco)
BIRDS:
181 - Western barn owl, Tyto alba
I knew that there were barn owls at one of my regular spots so I knew it was only a question of time before I see one there and indeed while looking for them at night, a ghost-like silhouette flew right in front of me! Only the second time I've seen this species.
27/12/2020 (Imouzzer des Ida-Outanane, Morocco)
BIRDS:
182 - Rock bunting, Emberiza cia
183 - Red crossbill, Loxia curvirostra (ssp. poliogyna)
And the best for the end! The region where I live (Souss-Massa) doesn't have many pine forests or any forest (barring eucalyptus, acacia and argan ones) at all and so that means that a few select places have very special species. That's the case of the Imouzzer valley which is one of the few places in my region where the likes of Levaillant's woodpecker, Stock dove, Hawfinch, Eurasian jay etc.. and especially Red crossbill can be seen. I thought I'd try my shot at these, with my main target being Red crossbills, even though it is well-known that mountain birding can be very frustrating with almost no species seen.
On our way up to the village, we got fleeting views of Rock bunting which is a very nice species and a lifer. We decided to stop at a random spot where three or four pine trees stood and to my surprise, there was a group of 4 crossbills! I continued birding even though I got my target and in particularly nice habitats but didn't see much that was interesting, which goes to show how variable mountain/forest birding can be.
All-in-all a very great month of birding that puts me at 183 bird species for the year so far as well as 196 species for Morocco (4 left to reach 200!) and 241 species overall. I'm hoping to bird one last time tomorrow to end off what has been my best year of birding, hopefully with one or two additions in the bag.
Didn't end up going to the place I had planned to go to because said reserve is apparently closed due to COVID so my list for the year is over.
Ironically, even though for everyone 2020 hasn't been a great year at all and so even in birding, it has been my best year birding so far!
Let's start with general wildlife-watching to get rid of it: non-bird wise, it honestly was a pretty regular year. I didn't put many efforts to identify the inverts I saw which resulted in me only seeing 16 species this year, mostly species I already knew how to identify (as only two were lifers). Mammal-wise, as usual for me, it's been a pretty quiet year with only 4 species but I was very happy to finally see a wild hare in Morocco, namely Cape hare which is the most common species here, the sole mammal lifer I got this year. Seeing Red fox for the first time since 2018 was also a good thing but I was a little sad not to see Striped ground squirrel this year since I have been to one of the few spots where this relictual species can still be seen in Morocco (where I saw them in 2018 and 2019) many times this year without any luck. Herp-wise, it has been a relatively regular year with the higlight beeing another Acanthodacytlus species for my life list: namely Acanthodactylus erythrurus.
Now to get to the serious part (
): birds! I had set a goal of 150 bird species to see before the year started but then when I reached that in October, I changed it to 170 which I thought would be really hard to reach. In the end, I got
183 bird species this year of which
41 were lifers (22,4%).
This year has been special for me birding-wise on so many levels. First of all it marked the first time that I birded in the field with binoculars, which helped immensely. Also, due to COVID-19, I wasn't able to travel at all except a single week in Spain back in February, which also had a positive impact: I've completed exploded my record of species seen in Morocco in a year. My previous one was 126 species last year when 178 of my 183 species this year were seen in Morocco! This meant that my Moroccan life list grew a lot as well
Now for the highlights:
The year started amazingly well with my first ever successful twitch! The 16th Common loon for Morocco was reported near me and after many misses when trying to twitch things, I finally got to see a rare vagrant in Morocco. The same day, I got my first wild cranes at the same spot so that marked one of my best days birding right at the start of the year.
After a few months of regular birding where I got some really nice lifers like Brown-throated martin (which was one of my most wanted species in Morocco and turned out to be way more common and easy to get than I thought), I was in Spain where I managed to get a few regular species when news got out that a Laughing gull was seen in Essaouira, 175km from where I live! I would only come back in late February and had nobody to drive me there so I had to wait until the 8th of March to twitch it. I deemed my chances of seeing it very sparse as it was seen a month or so ago and because it would be hard to detect amongst hundreds of gulls but just as I was about to give up I got it! Definitely the best bird I had seen in my life at the time and I thought that I wouldn't be able to top it...
Sadly, a few days later, Morocco went under strict lockdown which meant that I couldn't bird at all for a whopping 3 months. In retrospect, that makes the Laughing gull twitch even better because if I had waited just a little more, I would've probably never twitched it. This would however mean that my goal of 150 species would be much harder if not impossible for me to reach...
... or so I thought because summer + fall birding once lockdown was lifter were amazing. The first major event was to meet probably the best birder in Morocco to bird with him in my region for a day. I didn't get any particularly good species (only one addition for the year list that day) but it was extremely fun to bird with someone else, especially someone who knows his stuff that well. Trying a scope for the first time was also amazing! A few weeks later, I FINALLY got to see marbled teal, my nemesis species since I've started birding, after many years looking for them in unsuccessfully. I met again with said birder, this time where he lives, and we birded at a local spot with a friend of him which was, once again, a very fun outing not only for the birds we got but also for the whole experience.
The rest of of fall consisted of regular birding with many many cool bird species I dreamt of seeing but the definite highlight of it was finding my first ever big find: a shrike that looked truly odd to me (pale beak, pale plumage in general etc...) could indeed be the first Moroccan record of Steppe grey shrike (Lanius excubitor pallidirostris) if accepted by the Moroccan rarity committee. Definitely my best ever bird if confirmed. The month of October continued to be amazing when I met with a third time with the birder friend mentioned before, this time bringing a second scope with him so we could do some sea-watching together: three amazing days with 10 lifers (including my second and third shearwater, my first and second jaegers, my first scoter etc...) of which the highlight was the 6th of Brown booby for Morocco if accepted! The month of October 2020, the single month where I've seen the most bird species in my life, ended perfectly with my first ever nightjar: a Red-necked nightjar.
Winter birding was quieter but still nice especially thanks to my first real mountain birding in my region, at Imouzzer, where I got Red crossbill, another highlight species for me.
As usual, to conclude this awfully long post (and I apologize for that by the way), the now regular fun stat to the end the year, which this year focuses on rare species: Before this year, I had never seen a species rare enough to be sent to the rarities committee, whereas I've now seen 4 taxa eligible for that (Steppe grey shrike, Brown booby, Laughing gull, Common loon, in order of rarity), as well as two more that used to be "committee species" (Common gull and Red phalarope)
Not a bad year list so far, considering I haven't left Victoria.
. This year was the only year I even had a chance, presumably @Hix didn’t get around to much snorkeling this year. 
