White-Crowned Wheatear ~ Ouzarzate & Erfoud, Morocco - 01.03.13

The most predominant bird throughout our trip has to go to White-Crowned Wheatear's virtually everywhere we went these little beauties would appear.

The first bit of shutter abuse took place at the huge lake at Ouzarzate. We drove through the town on Rue Ait Aghdif and followed the signs for " Camping " stay on the lower road keeping the lake in view, till you leave the last of the town and park near the derelict building.

This is a great site with some quality birds and you can easily have a morning here and still want more !!

Conveniently place piles of dirt and higher vegetation were the chosen perch's and the derelict building was the background ...

White-Crowned Wheatear

F10 & F11 ~ 1/2000, 1/1600 & 1/1000

Late afternoon we made our last stop of the day just West of Erfoud, An odd rocky outcrop with some scrub and also contained a few desert specialities.

Best of all another two White-Crowned that seemed willing enough so we took more images ... 

Look forward to doing these again sometime ...

Wheatear's are great subjects !! 

Morocco ~ Ouzarzate, Tagdilt, Erg Chebbi & Oukaimeden - 28th Feb / 5th Mar

Had a offer to join a trip to Morocco with Bradders & Jono, didn't need asking twice so Me & Richard booked flights with Easyjet ... sorted !!

Day 1

Landed at Marrakesh mid morning, Bradders had a 4x4 arranged with the help of some fluent French from Jono ..

We were on our way first stop a Rubbish Dump near Ait Ourir two big flocks hundreds in each of Cattle Egret & Black Kite, then a smart Moussier's Redstart and a little way down the road a Black-winged Kite !!

A long drive over the pass and by late afternoon we were birding a Wadi near Amerzgane of note here were White Crowned Wheatears, Woodchat Shrike, Thekla Lark and Common Bulbul.

The hotel is highly recommended Albarak at Ait Benhaddou, 4 course meal + 3 course breakfast & Bed £ 22.50 superb, and a bargain !!

Woodchat Shrike

Day 2

First stop was the lake at Ouzarzate which we accessed at the end of town.

Of note here were more WC Wheatears, Trumpeter Finch, Moroccan Wag, Laughing Dove,House Bunting, Temminck's Stint, Long-billed Lark & Osprey

Trumpeter Finch

Long-billed Lark

Spectacled Warbler

A road side flooded field held quite a few egrets so a quick stop.

Cattle Egret

 

More Km's to our  next stop, Tagdilt track and no sooner onto the track and the first birds were Temminck's Lark, Red-rumped Wheatears, Hoopoe Lark and the stunning Cream-Coloured Courser ... omg !!

Temminck's Lark

Red-rumped Wheatear

Cream-Coloured Courser

Just before Tinghir at a T junction, Bradders spotted a Black Wheatear which turn into a pair and came within range as did a Thekla Lark on the otherside on the road !!

Black Wheatear

Thekla Lark

Long Legged Buzzard

And last stop in the evening light was just west of  Erfoud at some good road side habitat.

Desert & Bar tailed Larks and more WC Wheatears.

Desert Lark

White-Crowned Wheatear

Then another long drive arriving under the cover of darkness at a massive fort type hotel !!

Click for Yasmina Hotel

4 course meal + Bed + Breakfast
£ 30 .00 per night !!

Highly Recommended


Bradders said " Wait till you see the view in the morning "

Day 3

Like a big kid, I couldn't wait and was the first one up & out watching the sun rise and the view was ...
Massive dunes and camels 
He was right it was simple amazing !!

Along side the hotel is normally a lake but was dried out and plenty of Tamarisk so we birded here for an hour getting Tristram's Warbler and Brown-necked Raven.

Brown-necked Raven

Then we started the walk out into the Erg Chebbi dunes which was an hour long.

Bradders had our course set with GPS and we just followed the camel trail, eventually leading us to a settlement of just one family, two large tents, loads of goats and a few Palm trees which held our prize !!

Desert Sparrow

These were smart little birds which deserved more time which we couldn't give them .... ):
Another hour long walk back for breakfast, but more important was to get the sand out of my toes !!

Next was the track near Yasmina some great habitat which stretched for miles
and held quality birds 

Desert Warbler

Hoopoe Lark

We tried a site near Rissini for Eagle Owl but failed.
Back to Yasmina for another wonderful night at this superb hotel ..

Day 4

First light and were back on the track near Yasmina for more of  the Desert specialities.

Bar-tailed Desert Lark

Thick-billed Lark

Desert Wheatear

It was time to leave this amazing place and start the long drive back for another go at Tagdilt, stopping between Tinehir and Boumalne Dades with yet more GPS for another Owl site.
Good views here of Pharoah's Eagle Owl and Black Wheatear.

Further on towards Boumalne and spotted from the car in rapidly fading light was ...

Maghreb Wheatear

 
Our hotel for the night was

Soleil bleu

Excellent food, about £ 22.50 per night

Was woken by crazy rain which just didn't stop all night ...

Day 5

Still raining and still awake, we tried to bird Tagdilt track but the rain beat us so mid morning started the 5 hour drive back over the pass !!

Only made it as far as the first town of Boumalne to find out what it's like when freaky rain falls all night ...

  
Flash floods meant we were cut off and just couldn't continue for hours when we finally crossed there were another 15 floods on route ..
Two Short-toed Eagles from the car, and with no real birding or camera work we arrived after dark at our final hotel Le Coq Hardi at Ait Ourir, cheapest of them all and yet more great food.

Day 6

Up at first light and more rain, we were heading for Oukaimeden going up through the Ourika Valley and within no time the rain had stopped, the skies clearing and at a lay-by Jono calls Woodpecker !!

Levaillant's Green Woodpecker

On and up with some great views

It was still quite early when we reached the ski resort and next to nobody about, it wasn't going to stay like this for long !!

Alpine Accentor

African Chaffinch

Any patch of grass or bare ground that wasn't covered in snow seemed to have birds on it ...

But my stubbornness of refusing to have messy backgrounds took its toll and our longest photo session just didn't go my way !!

Chough

Alpine Chough

Raven

Atlas Horned Lark

Over the radio came the call ...
Crimson winged !!!

These were super little birds but again, nothing that I am happy with

Crimson-winged Finch

With time pressing on it was back down to the Woody lay-by which now had some Camels parked in it !!
We spent the last half an hour with this little beauty ...

Moussier's Redstart

A great bird to finish up with ...

That was it pack up and head for the airport

Big thanks to Bradders and Jono for some great organisation, all the driving and some language skills ..
Merci ...

I had a fantastic time, a brilliant trip with great company and some exceptional birds ...
 I will just have to go again as I'm disappointed with my image results !!
Not enough time with each subject to get the best results.

P.S.... where next !!

Ring-billed Gull ~ Gosport, Hampshire - 17.02.13

We had a morning visit to Walpole Park, Gosport for the adult wintering Ring-billed Gull.

Could of stayed for longer but a family came with a few loaves of bread to feed the swans, the Ring-billed stuffed itself and then flew to the creek ... end of our little game ..

Ring-billed Gull

Dark-breasted Barn Owl ~ Southease, East Sussex - 16.02.13

Late afternoon we made our way to a field alongside Southease Station in East Sussex where a Dark type Barn Owl has been seen ..

We met Paul S there who gave us the lowdown on the birds previous behaviour and it did exactly that .. !!

Tyto. alba. guttata ( C. L. Brehm, 1831 ) 

Central Europe North of the Alps from The Rhine to Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine and South to Romania, NE Greece and South Balkans. Intergrades with alba at the Western border of its range.

Darker than nominate. Upperparts more Orange-Brown with a more pronounced grey veil than alba. Underparts Buff to Rufous with some dark speckles more than in alba. Facial disc white becoming brownish towards the bill. Females on average more Buff/Rufous on underparts than males.

This is a Dark type bird but is it within

the varition of  T. a. guttata if it is then 

surely it's on the lighter phase, due to 

the grey veil being sparsely marked 

and rather clean looking facial disc ....

Or

Could it be an exceptionally dark T. a. alba ...

Or 

Could it be one of intergrades from where the ranges come together at the western edge of the T. a. guttata overlap ..

Or

Could it be another subspecies ...

Information on this subject I'm finding hard to come across.

Like all Owl's, when this superb bird came into view and flew pass there's just something magical in watching it ..

Dark-Breasted Barn Owl

One thing is for certain, what a beautiful looking bird ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update

I messaged Martin Garner who kindly took up my questions and did a blog post read in full

birdingfrontiers blog post

Regards the owl, it’s clearly not acceptable as guttata for the following reasons:

The pale undertail coverts and pale legs are the giveaway – they should be buff in guttata

pale underwing coverts – should be buff in guttata

white facial disc – should have extensive dark marks around the eye in guttata

pale grey primary tips – should be much darker grey in guttata

rather thin barring across primaries – should be broader in guttata and go across the whole feather

underpart spotting – this bird is rather lightly spotted, but may be OK for male guttata

So there really is nothing going for it as a guttata apart from a slightly more extensive buff breast than normal, and to be honest, I’m surprised that some information services are still listing it as such. Some female alba can show buff breasts like this, and there may well be a tendency for birds in the east of Britain (East Anglia mostly, but of course we don’t know where this bird was hatched) to exhibit more extensive buff breasts as a result of influence from the near Continent and the intergrade zone in the Low Countries and France. In short, this is either a British alba or possibly an intergrade from the near Continent, but I suspect it was hatched in Britain.

Paul French.