Morocco Day 3

This male Red-rumped Wheatear was on the Tagdilt Track just SE out of Boumalne headng towards Tinghir on the N10

  I was on the Tagdilt Track at 08.00 and immediately found 7 Temmink's Horned Lark around the rubbish area to my right. Ideal! A very short drive down road, scanned and a spotted a female Red-rumped Wheatear. It was a long ways off and I started walking towards the rubble it was perched on. After half an hour, I gave up with the camera but as I returned to my car, perched on top of another pile of rubble was a smart male Red-rumped Wheatear! He showed a lot better and was joined by the female and the pair showed very well in the end. I made my ways around the walls with a football ground inside that the wheatear were both sat on and also got a single Trumpter Finch and 3 more Temmink's Horned Lark. 
  I continued along the track for two miles, pulling off all the time, but all I could find were 3 Desert, 4 Thekla, 2 Temmink's Horned Lark and another male Red-rumped Wheatear. 2 Long-legged Buzzard were overhead as it started to cloud over.

This is the area where the larks were feeding around those small mounds of rubbish

I spent over 30 minutes with 7 Temmink's Horned Lark as they were feeding around the rubbish

 

And I spent over an hour with this pair of Red-rumped Wheatear that favoured the outside walls of the football ground just off the Tagdilt Track

Also this Trumpter Finch and 4 Temminck's Horned Lark were on top of the wall 

The stony desert just off Tagdilt Track

Tagdilt Track with the army barracks in the distance. The football ground is just to the right of the top middle pic

  It was early afternoon when I returned to the N10 and starting making my ways towards Tinghir. Only a few miles up road and got a pair of Red-rumped Wheatear. I had just passed through Skour  when I spotted a large rodent to my right. No cars behind, so I started to reverse to hopefully see what species it was when a Barbary Falcon flew low over the car and landed on the pole in font of me. I got cracking views as it fed on the very rodent that I had just passed! 3 Desert Lark were also on the opposite side of the road.

Barbary Falcon just outside Skour on the N10 against a milky sky

3 Desert Lark were on the otherside of the road from the falcon

  It wasn't until I got two miles nearing Tinghir that I caught sight of a different species of Wheatear at the side of the road. Again no traffic behind, so  I quickly pulled over and walked back to where it was. It took me a good ten minutes to relocate it and when I did, I identified it as a Female Mourning Wheatear. There were also a single Black Redstart and Stonechat in the same area.

When I was back at my digs, and talking to Dave Barnes, I discovered that it was a Female Maghreb Wheatear, by some, this is treated as a different race to Mourning Wheatear. The Mourning Wheatear I saw in Palestine looked nothing like the one above. 

The road to Tinghir

I watched this last year and for the last 7 years I've always wanted to see Gary Clark Jr live. Clapton take note cuz ain't got nothing on this guy!