Morocco - January 2025 - Day 0 - Arrival and Maghreb Owl

We arrived in Marrakesh at around 6pm and picked up our car, a glorious Kia Picanto. Ideally I would have rented a 4x4, but you could rent a fleet of Picantos for the same money. If you plan on driving on rough terrain withouty one then absolutely the next best thing is the smallest, lightest and crappiest car you can find. The lighter it is the more likely you can coax it over the rough ground, there is less weight on the tyres, and there is less bulk if you need to shift it manually or dig it out if you get stuck. It will also cost less to fix if you get it seriously wrong! The Picanto fitted the bill admirably and we took it everywhere and over almost everything.

Our original plan had been to get as far as Ait Ourir and then cross the Atlas via the Tizi n'Tichka pass, descending into Ouarzazate for some afternoon birding in the desert, but a few weeks before we travelled Mick found some gen online about a regular Maghreb Owl on the road to Oukaimeden. Further research revealed that the bird was being seen from a particular hotel. It was an easy decision to cancel Ait Ourir and instead book Aurocher Oukaimeden, and it was about the same distance as well. Given we would then be halfway towards the ski resort with its unique birds we modified the plan to include Oukaimeden, we would get up there early and bird until around mid-morning before descending back to the road over the Atlas, hopefully still leaving time for the afternoon light. Perfect right?

I estimate that we heard the Owl up towards the left-hand red rectangle to start with. Later on it sat in the marked trees at the top right.

We arrived at the hotel without a problem, stopping just once to withdraw some cash. Overall it was probably about and hour and half from the airport. Marrakesh is not for the faint-hearted, but you leave the craziness behind quite rapidly as you head south. It was a good thing we had booked as the hotel seemed completely full, perhaps to do with the ski season and it being the weekend. It was a very nice setting, on the side of a hill and with multiple levels and gardens, and cost double what every other night cost! The Owl had better be there! We had a nice meal and then set about trying to find it. One observer had been fortunate enough to see it in the daytime from his hotel bedroom window when he looked out in the morning, but we couldn't exactly count on that and wanted to get it under our belts that evening. I had recently purchased a small but very powerful LED torch and we used this to scan the trees both in the hotel garden and on the steep sides of the valley. Eventually we heard it way up the hillside - as you would expect it sounds a bit like a Tawny Owl. A little while later it crossed the valley and sat in some pine trees above the hotel on the road, just about within photographable range. One of us held the torch whilst the other attempted a photo, after which we swapped. At this point I had almost no knowledge about how my camera worked, certainly not in the dark, and it being mirrorless seemingly complicated it no end. I know what to do now, but the time my ignorance was supremely unhelpful and so the photos are terrible. Still, a new bird is a new bird. A great start to the trip.