Bonsaibirder - birds!: January 2009

Monday 19 January 2009

Well-travelled LBBG

This Lesser Black-backed Gull (just to the left of the Audouin's Gull) was ringed in Gloucester on 13th March 2004.

Since then it has been seen in Agadir, Morocco in November 2005 and January 2007.

It was then seen back in Gloucester in March 2007 before I found it on the beach at Oued Massa, Morocco on 9th January 2009.

Brilliant!

I thought that the Lesser Black-backed Gulls in Morocco were going to be intermedius but perhaps the strong light makes them look darker than they do in the UK - are these birds (which all looked to have similarly dark backs to me - up to 1100 of them!) actually graellsii?

Through e-mail correspondance with the ringing group I have learned that this was probably not one of the darkest birds they have rung in Gloucester. But they do ring numerous intermedius gulls which vary from dark grey to nearly black in mantle colour.

Saturday 17 January 2009

Morocco - January 2009 - High Atlas and Oued Massa

This was not a comprehensive birding trip to Morocco. First, we had a week trekking with Mountain Safari Tours in the High Atlas, south east of Marrakesh. Then we had four days on the coast in the very lovely Ksar Massa Hotel, south of Agadir, right next to a well known birding spot – Oued Massa. We did not do any desert birding.

The trek was great - energetic, scenic and with quite a few birds to keep me happy. But the first birds we encountered were as we had breakfast on the roof of our hotel in Marrakesh.

These are the sahari race of House Bunting.

They are much more rufous on the back and wings than the race I saw previously in Turkey. They are a bit grotty to tell the truth but have the cutest call of just about any bird I have heard! Certainly, their cheeky little squeak is unlike anything I have heard from a bunting before. They live up to their name too - we saw them on the hotel in Marrakesh and in every village we passed through in the trek - nowhere else!

Between the villages, House Buntings were replaced by Rock Buntings.

Note the dark streaks on the upperparts, strong head pattern, grey bill and grey lesser coverts (you can just about see these on the first Rock Bunting pic) which separate them from House Bunting (rufous upperparts, yellow lower mandible and rufous lesser coverts).

Many birds seen on the trek were very familiar - Robin, Blackbird, Great Tit, Coal Tit Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Song Thrush - it was a bit like my back garden! Mind you, you don't see Blackbirds on cacti very often in the UK!

Other apparently familiar species didn't look quite the same as they do at home.

ultramarinus Blue Tits with blue backs and dark blue crowns

africana Chaffinches with green backs

and mauritanica Magpies with blue bare skin behind their eyes

I saw four new species on this trip and was lucky enough to photograph three of them.

Moussier's Redstart is a small, stunning redstart. Possibly one of the prettiest birds I have ever seen. It's a shame I didn't really get a good photo of the male. But this bird is so good that any photo will look OK to a point:

This male Levaillant's Green Woodpecker was spotted at the side of the trekking path by our "donkey man" Ahmed! I never thought we would get this close. And I especially didn't think it would sit there and wait for me to photograph it!

The third "tick" was Tristram's Warbler which is a lovely little bird, but I didn't manage to photograph the two I saw.

The fourth "tick" was probably the main target species of the trip. This flock of 62 Bald Ibis represents around 15% of the world population !

These majestic, powerful flyers are huge compared to other ibis species I have seen. I just hope the conservation measures in Morocco and Turkey are successful. I was told that the population is rising – so fingers crossed.