randombirder

Following on from a trip to the Oued Souss region last October, this time it was the Atlas Mountains and the Tagdilt Track - a path well trodden within the birding community. The sites were relatively easy to find, the birds however less so and time was tight. After a smooth and punctual flight from Gatwick on easyJet, and a night spent in a riad close to the airport, the next day was a short walk to the airport and the hire-car pick up for the first stop at Oukaimeden in the Atlas Mountains. Oukaimeden swarmed with local visitors revelling in the residual snow that had largely disappeared but was sufficient enough for sledging and skiing at the higher levels. Feeling a bit disoriented, the landscape was vast and mountainous. Red-billed chough and alpine chough swirled around at height in impressive numbers. Pushing through the throng while evading the hawkers, the crimson-winged finch foraged around the market stalls on scraps, largely remnants of nuts spilled off the wooden trelli

A quick dart up to Brancaster having returned back from Egypt - the weather was significantly different. Parking up on the concrete pad that formed the advised vantage point for the cackling goose, it was a distant browse through the thousands of pink-footed goose foraging amongst the fallow that provided a challenging attempt to catch-up with this nearctic vagrant.  It was eventually located through a gap in a hedge feeding amongst its surrogates and that was essentially that.  A male hen harrier passed by adding a bit more interest to the day.

One of my favourite countries.  Egypt - and it was great to visit again as well as see one a good friend in Cairo.  Based in Hurghada, the Bellagio Beach Hotel has a small tidal inlet that supports a number of waterbirds that come and go as the tides ebb and flow.  It was here that the majority of new species were seen which was quite convenient as there weren't many points along this stretch of coast that were easy to access. Slender-billed gull were present constantly here in fluctuating numbers as were great crested tern  a couple of  caspian tern , a single sooty gull on a couple of evenings, and a pallas's gull that popped in for a couple of hours. Two western reef heron (a pale phase and a dark phase) flew into the bay on the first day with the dark phase seen on subsequent days. A couple of striated heron were only seen on the first day at the hotel which was quite fortunate. A fair selection of wader species would feed on the intertidal mud including many  greater