More sights from northern Morocco

I was out in the field next to our hotel in Asilah again early yesterday morning when I started hearing little sounds from the grass around me, which I first thought were coming from insects, but instead they were coming from these tiny and aptly named zitting cisticolas (Cisticola juncidis). I have never heard of cisticolas before, let alone zitting ones, even though they can be found in South Holland.

When I first spotted this cutie in the bushes right beside the hotel, I thought the dark cap made it a great tit, as we did see in South Holland, and then the separation between the eyeline and the cap is reminiscent of a Eurasian blue tit, which we’ve also seen there, but their range does not extend across the Mediterranean. Instead, this is our very first African blue tit (Cyanistes teneriffae).

After that fruitful outing, Anne and I drove the kids up to Tangier to catch a ferry to Spain, and then we went into the medina to see what we could see. There were a few birds about, especially swifts, but the best picture I could get was of this yellow-legged gull, which we first saw in Slovenia, on the wall of the kasbah.

After a fun evening and overnight in Tangier, this morning we started back south and stopped at Cape Spartel, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, and where this wild boar (Sus scrofa) came out of the woods looking for something to eat. Happily, I was not on the menu. It reminds me of the javelina we saw in Big Bend State Park, but I read that they are only “somewhat” related.

Finally, a bit further down the coast, we stopped again, and the bushes were full of speckled wood butterflies, same as we used to see in South Holland.

My sister, the vet who saved the Carolina warbler from a glue trap, is joining us tomorrow morning, and then we’re taking the train to Meknes. I can’t wait to see what we find there.