15 Feb 2019: Birding the Sahara
- vagranttwitcher
- Feb 15, 2019
- 1 min read
The habitat within the Sahara differs greatly, from stony plains to sand dunes to wadis filled with palm trees and scrub-like bushes. I soon learnt that every habitat here has its own specialised niche birds. The desert is filled with countless tracks, seemingly meandering to nowhere. Luckily our driver in the rented 4x4 knew every nook and cranny, and took us to some excellent birding spots.
The first spot, a wadi filled with ankle-high bushes, soon delivered some desert specials such as the Desert Wheatear, Desert Lark, Bar-tailed Lark and Greater Short-toed Lark. A very strange sight was a Montague’s Harrier flying low over the wadi searching for prey.
In some scrub near a dry river course we found the very light-coloured African Desert Warbler, Common Whitethroat, Spectacled Warbler and Sardinian Warbler. The stony plains were filled with some very tame Hoopoe Larks, as well as numerous Cream-coloured Coursers – a truly beautiful desert special.
Mohammed located the very hard to find Desert Sparrow during lunch (chicken kebabs, nuts and olives) at a tented camp in an oasis while some very obliging Spotted Sandgrouse stayed long enough for a few photos. All in all, the day delivered fourteen new birds – just another good day in paradise!
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