Morocco: the Tagdilt Track

Things have been pretty tough lately with ridiculous expectations, so I'd typed up a big rant about the demoralization of life/society/work here in Greater London but then realized the internet might not be the best place for that so I will digress.

In the meantime, there is a silver lining to me giving up 2 (now unofficially 3) of my prime years of life and that is awesome holidays. I mean, some people are such slaves that they get 2 weeks A YEAR! I mean seriously, WHAT!  I've taken advantage of mine by raging some epic spots that are easily within reach of London on budget airlines. The ideas for this trip started with meeting my mum and step-dad in Malaga, Spain. I googled birding spots around Malaga and ended coming up with an crazy itinerary for two countries and seeing some of the rarest shit you can barely imagine in 17 days. SWEET FREEDOM!

Red-rumped Wheatear

Now originally Dom and I had planned to book it straight for the mountains for the Crimson-winged Finch, one of my 4 most sought-after species of the trip (others were Egyptian Nightjar, Pharaoh Eagle-owl, Northern Bald Ibis), which can reliably be found at the ski hill (Oukaimeden), but with Steve being a last-minute addition to the trip, there was no way around his mid-day flight arrival and so we knew we might have to sacrifice that one, but were not writing it off completely. Our reunion was as epic as you would expect and we were obviously happy to give up a lifer for the added life force of Steve and his unparalleled zest for life.

Instead of lingering in the mountains, we decided to make a long-haul for the fabled Tagdilt Track so we could hit it at dawn. We sought our lodging in Ouazarzate and there we had our first taste of tagine which was as amazing as I'd heard.

But not as tasty as this Black-bellied Sandgrouse! Holy Shmooookes what a cracker!! This is the legendary TAGDILT!

Black-bellied Sandgrouse

Over the past couple of years, I've seen my birding skills atrophy to the point where I barely feel like a contributor anymore. Thanks be to God, the thrill of the Tafilalt was enough to re-awaken my city-blunted senses. It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and  I was spotting all the best guys! Our first stop on the track, we get out of the car and are immediately swarmed with lifers. Red-rumped Wheatear, Tawny Pipit, Short-tailed Lark, long-legged Buzzard then BAAMMM!!! Straight up THICK-BILLED LARK! Holy BAJEEBERS look at the friggin' bill on that thing! I was high on birds!! It flew off before I could get a pic but what a bird so promise me you'll google it! 

Steve unleashed his bazooka and gave 'er da berries

Long-legged Buzzard

Temminck's Lark

Have you noticed anything funny yet? Like we are birding in a garbage dump? In fact, the Tagdilt Track is adjacent to a dump so with nothing to contain the garbage the shit just blows all over the desert, destined to remain there for over a hundred years. Oddly enough, the birds seem to like it since all the best activity was where there was the most garbage!

We followed Gosney's birdfinding guide (deserts), using the detailed maps to make our way to a more elevated part in search of Hoopoe-Lark and Cream-coloured Courser.

Suddenly I spotted the Hoopoe-Lark right beside the car with its ridiculous get-up running around like some kind of freak. I deployed my sniper through the car window...BAM! 

Greater Hoopoe-Lark

We cruised slowly, keeping 3 pairs of eyes peeled for the profile of a Courser. We were all raving about how friggin awesome this day was! Even now, I scintillate with the memory. Cruising through the Moroccan desert with 2 of my best buddies, slaying lifers left and right. I will return to this sweet memory when needed, in times of extreme lameness, to kindle hope for future days of adventure that make life worth living.

Desert Wheatear

A small hand-drawn map showed the location of a ruined building which looked like a small castle, which Gosney described as a site for Maghreb Wheatear. We were trying to figure out how to get there, but there were so many dirt tracks all over that it was hard to pick the right one. We scoped the decrepit structure in the distance, so it seemed easier just to walk to it even though it was about 3 km away to our reckoning, but we were in the desert so getting lost would require great incompetence. While scoping the "wheatear wall," guess who walked through my scope view? A family of Cream-colored Coursers! BAZAAM! Based on reports, I'd anticipated some effort in finding them but this was too easy. We ended up seeing 18 I think.

Spot the Cream-coloured Courser!

We said "in a bit" to our trusty Dacia and made a beeline toward the wheatear fortress.

The super long-range Dacia took us about 2000 km on a tank and a half

It was a fortress of wheatears, with 5 species there but despite our thorough search of the area we did not turn up the infamous Maghreb. Util next time. 

White-capped Wheatear on the "wheatear wall"

With several red-hot lifers in the bag, we could not complain at the loss of one and could only rejoice in the vast beauty of the desert and the many treasures therein.