A birding trip

By Nico Ordax

My dream journey is a great bird-watching trip. I'd like to take a trip to Morocco, to see all the birds there. I would go with Adouin Birding Tous (http://www.audouinbirding.net/)

Cristian Jensen Marcet and Iben Hove Sørensen established the company in 2005 to offer their own tours and activities. Their bird-watching trips are great, they are very nice people, and they know a lot about their job. Their trips are really interesting and you learn a lot from them.

The trip I am referring to is 11 days long and goes through the whole of Morocco. It is designed to present all of the typical and best birds in Morocco.

The first days comprise the arrival and a trip to the Massa National Park, to see some waders and other coastal and dryland birds. There is an excursion scheduled to another region, where visitors can see one of the rarest birds in all the Western Paleartic (a region which includes Europe, North Africa and East Asia), the Northern Bald Ibis.

The fourth day is a transition day, but with good options for seeing migrant raptors, waders and passerines on the journey to Tinerhir.

The following three days are based in Tinerhir, looking for very interesting desert birds, such as sand grouses, warblers, larks and many others, on the Tagdilt-Track. One day, a Houbara-Bustard, an extremely rare bird, was seen just ten meters from a car.

Days eight and nine are transition days, but you can also see some interesting raptors, especially falcons like the Lesser-Kestrel and Lanner Falcon.

The last "real bird-watching ing day" is the tenth, when the travelers go to a ski resort at an altitude of 2,600 meters in the Atlas Mountains, where some really special birds, such as the Levaillants Woodpecker and Crimson-Winged Finch can be found. In the afternoon there is an optional visit to Marrakech.

On the last day there is not much time for bird-watching (only a little bit in the morning) before going back to the airport.