We’re taking the train to Fes today, so who knows what wildlife pictures, if any, I’ll be able to get, but here are a few left over from previous days. This first one isn’t very pretty, but I was still glad to get it. I’d been seeing large black birds flying in groups for days, and thought they were cormorants until I watched a group land in a dry field, which I can’t imagine cormorants ever doing. Well, that’s because these are glossy ibises (Plegadis falcinellus) instead, and while Anne and I were strolling around the vicinity of our hotel in Casablanca, before going to the airport to collect my sister, we found a slew of birds at a little puddle of water deep in the brush behind a fence. The black birds are the ibises, the white birds are western cattle egrets, and an added bonus were about a half dozen black-winged stilts. As we left, after sneaking a few pictures through the sticks, something “kicked the hive” because there were suddenly dozens of birds in the sky. Lucky timing!
Also by the hotel in Casablanca, there seemed to have been some kind of land snail infestation. I have never seen so many.
Fast forward to here in Meknes, and there is a pair of kestrels, perhaps a lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) nesting in the medina wall. This one looks like the male, ….
and this one looks like a female or youngster. Either way, it was calling quite adamantly to the male hiding around the corner.
Finally, here’s another butterfly from Volupilis yesterday, and this one appears to b a brown argus (Aricia agestis)
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 