Monday 13th March – Day around Dakhla

We were collected for breakfast at 8.00 and taken to the Samarkand restaurant for a breakfast of bread rolls, omelette, cheese and tea/coffee with freshly squeezed orange juice. We chose a table area that looked out over the bay and along the beech there were Grey Plover, Turnstone, Whimbrel and Little Egret foraging. Just as we sat down to eat a couple of Ospreys flew along, one flew up over the café but the other came down the beech, stopping just offshore to catch a fish before carrying on further along.

The morning was spent driving down to the point of La Sarga where there is a large fishing village of shacks generating a huge amount of rubbish. On the way we made a stop at a large group of gulls, mainly Lesser Black Back Gulls with a colour ringed one among them. There are hundreds of fishing boats parked along the sand and tractors roar around collecting them and moving them, fetching them from the sea and dragging them across the sand or just tidying them up. Down on the point there were more gulls and several Caspian Terns with Sanderling running around the shore. A lot of searching through the gulls eventually found an adult Kelp Gull. Around the bay there were lots of waders, including Kentish Plover, Curlew Sandpiper and an Audouin's Gull  In the distance was a flock of Flamingos.

We spent a lot of time looking through the birds and enjoying the boats being moved around. Mohammed took us round to the other side of the bay and left us to walk round the dune while he drove to the other side. Just as we were about to get out we saw a small bird that turned out to be a Red-throated Pipit. Another bird joined it before they flew over the bushes inland. In the sand were lots of Cistanche spikes in various stages from fresh out to very dead. As we walked round the fishing village the amount of rubbish was incredible.

From here we headed back north with a stop for some sea-watching where we saw several Skuas and a few Storm Petrels, but these were too far away to identify positively. There was one of the local fishing boats struggling through the waves heading back to La Sarga.

We drove on through Dakhla and further north via a diversion to the coast to avoid the police checks. There were more flocks of Gulls and Caspian Terns to check through before we came out on the road again and headed further north.

Taking to the side tracks again we came to the edge of the bay and looking down there was a stretch of marshy area with Little egrets and further on we stopped by some rocks and among the Caspian terns were a least three Royal terns. We spent a little time watching them from an odd jumble of rocks before moving closer, taking time to look at and photograph a Dumeril's Sand Lizard.

Returning to the car we travelled back towards Dakhla before going off-piste again and parking by a fish restaurant. We walked down the steps to a small beach-side fish restaurant. It was clled Talamare Huitres and there were oysters being farmed just offshore. The starter was a plate of oysters with lime and then a bowl of tomato, onion, cucumber and a bit of green pepper salad. We were waiting for the main course when a Little egret flew by followed a few minutes later by a Western Reef Heron. The main course arrived as a large tray with a whole fish surrounded by baked potato slices, tomatoes, egg plant and carrot with a large green pepper. It was delicious, except for the pepper which turned out to be very hot. I managed to fit in a paddle from the steps before we left. On the way out a Striped hawkmoth was found on the steps and relocated to a wall for safety.

We returned to our accommodation around four o'clock having seen all the target species and had a great day. As it was still light and as we had 3 hours to kill we decided to try and make it to the sea by walking out and east. We found our way but the area was very trashed and there was little to see and little opportunity for a drink. On the way back we checked out the Collared Doves in case there were any African doves and watched the acrobatic antics of several Little Swifts over the roof tops. We retraced our steps to a small café near the apartments where we had some drinks and made use of their wifi before returning to get freshened up for dinner.  We were collected at 7.30 and had a meal at the Samarkand, enjoyed a mint tea and then came back for the night.
Click here for a map of our route.

Sunday 12the March. Oued Massa

Up for a 6.30 breakfast of pancakes, jam, bread, pain au chocolat and tea or coffee.

As we packed up the car we saw a group of Pallid Swifts and there were Blackbirds, Spotless Starlings and House Buntings in and around the Hotel. We set off towards Oued Massa for the morning before heading to Agadir airport for our onward flight to Dakhla. Along the road we had several Mahgreb Magpies, Kestrels, some Sparrows and Pallid Swifts. It seemed quite a long drive but eventually we came to the turning to the Oued. A short way down this road we stopped for a Little Owl on a mound which soon flew up into a date palm. There was also a Striped Squirrel feeding in and around a rubble pile near an old shed.

We soon came to the village of ‘Massa’ where we turned left and then chose a track to the right, driving down towards the river. We stopped for a sighting of Tchagra and decided to park up and spend some time. We noticed a female Moussier’s Redstart carrying nest material into a shed beside the road and there were several pairs around the fields. Following a male into the field to a palm tree we also found Laughing Dove and Bulbuls. Brendan found 4 more Tchagras by the river but by the time we got there there were only two and these proved very difficult to photograph among the branches.

A walk along the river had lots of Chiffchaffs and several Isabelline Warblers along with a couple of further brief sightings of Tchagra. In the water were several Terrapins and along the banks we had Spanish Yellow Wagtail, Kingfisher, and three Brown Thoated Martins, one of which occasionally rested in a bush but never long enough to photograph. A wall butterfly was sunning itself by the car when we got back.

We eventually came out onto a tarmac road where we turned left towards the river and a small village. We made a stop by a ford where we found Coot, Moorhen, Sedge Warbler and brilliant views of Sardinian Warbler.

We carried on, driving along a track to a spot where there was a path down to an area of the Oued Souss that looked more like an oxbow. Here we had Moustached Warbler, a pair of Tchagra, a Squacco Heron, Purple Heron and Grey Heron and a Little Egret. There were some Barbary Nut iris but it was too early in the day for them to be open. We also found a dead Horsewhip Snake curled up on the grass.

We then retraced our steps, driving back to Massa Village and on to the turning to ‘camp site’ where we saw Yellow wagtail and then we took a track to the left and across the open area were 10 Bald Ibis. Parking the car we wandered over, seeing Stone Curlew on the way. We then decided to go back for the car to use it as a hide to get closer without disturbing the birds. A passing motorist gave us some good advice about how we could get through the sandy track ahead, which we just made with a bit of pushing at one point when the wheel started to sink.

For a map of where we went, click here.

It was time to return to the airport so we drove back north, stopping for some southern grey shrikes, and a brief look at a nice flock of Little Swifts flying over the road and around a garage. We arrived at the airport about 3.00 pm, sorted out the return of the car, checked in our baggage and went through for the flight to Dakhla. There was a short stop at Layounne where several passengers got off and more got on. We were met by our guide, Mohammed Samlali with two cars to transport ourselves and our luggage. He explained that because the Crans Montana Forum was being held in Dakhla over the next few days there were no hotel rooms to be had so they had arranged for us to stay in a couple of apartments which were in the process of being renovated.The house was reasonable comfortable, warm and a place to sleep, although the plumbing left something to be desired.

We were collected and taken to a pizza/café for a meal and then onto a café with wifi for a drink of tea before returning to our house for the night. In the toilet were two of the largest  cockroaches I have seen, but they seemed happy to stay there so we left them. 

Western Sahara, Morocco

The trip to Stansted was relatively simple other than an unfortunate young lady who had managed to crash her Smart car into the central reservation of the M11, but this didn't hold us up for long.
Ryanair air have automated their baggage checkin so that passengers now weigh and tag their own bags before handing them over. This seemed to work fine for my bag and my tag was printed but when we put David's bag on, it weighed it and then said he had exceeded the weight limit. We were told to take it to a desk checkin. Brendan's machine ran out of paper so he had to also checkin but the others all worked OK. Boarding went smoothly and we found our allocated seats but after we were all sorted a man came down the aisle looking and stopped at us. It seems that one of our bags hadn't registered properly and they were a bag over so we had to get off the plane and go round to the side to verify, repeatedly, that we had 5 bags and these were our 5 bags. Eventually we got back on and walk back down the aisle with a plane load of people all staring and, of course, this meant that we had lost our slot and this resulted in a two hour delay before we could leave.
The flight was fine and we arrived at Agadir, collected our luggage, sorted out some Dirhams, collected the car and drove towards Agadir where we found an Ibis Budget Hotel, had dinner at the near restaurant and went to bed. 

Annual Goose Watch

This year's trip to the polders was fitted in around various commitments at home and we were lucky that today was generally dry and sunny.

We stopped to refuel and get a Croque Monsieur for breakfast and a baguette for lunch and then, as a change, and to show Barry a different area, we headed to Fort Grand Phillipe to look for the snow buntings, twite and shorelarks that are often to be found here and had been reported in the last week.

When we first turned up the tide was way out and the marshy area was green,  the only birds we could see were some Reed Buntings, Chaffinches and a Greenfinch. We walked round the bay but there was not much else to see others than a Little Egret and large groups of  plastic decoys in front of the shooting butts.

Walking back to the car we noticed a small flock of birds on the dyke wall which we identified as Rock Pilots and just as we were thinking of leaving another group of birds was seen flying onto the shingle ridge in the distance. Most were too far away for positive identification but some of them were obviously Shorelarks. We decided to hang around and see if the rising tide would bring them nearer.

The tide was coming in rapidly and the marsh began to flood, the birds were more mobile but still distant. A couple of local birders walked out along the dyke and found a flock of Twite feeding along the bank and occasionally hopping up onto the path. We went to walk out closer but half way there we realised that there were 10 Shorelarks feeding just on the beach between us and the edge of the marsh. We stopped and had excellent scope views before trying to photograph them.

The tide had by now completely flooded the marsh area and the birds fed happily across the sand. We spent a bit of time on the beach getting better pictures as the larks foraged, coming quite close at times, before they flitted up and off.

Day 9 - Any Flying Squirrels? and home.

Day 9

As we had an extra day because of the lack of a flight at 2.15 we had asked to do a flying squirrel trip so dinner was around 5.00 It was pork au gratin with rice and broccoli. We then set off around 7.00 to drive the forest roads looking for Forest reindeer. We had no luck but did see Whimbrel on top of trees, a great grey shrike and wheatear as well as Arctic Hare feeding in fields and a garden and Domestic Reindeer before driving to the squirrel site.
It was a bit dark, it rained and the squirrel went elsewhere. We did find some Twinflowers but not much else.

We returned and went to bed, not waking up until 8.00 for a 9 o'clock breakfast. We had a quick whizz out for the reindeer but no luck. We then packed up the car with us and a french couple, who were spending some time with Sabrina, and drove to Kuhmo where the couple were dropped off at the visitors centre and we met up with a very luxurious taxi for the airport.

We arrived about an hour before our flight, checked in and went through security for the first leg of our flight home.