After a couple of long, but uneventful flights on Turkish Airways, and a nice long layover in the Istanbul airport, we all finally arrived safely in Morocco yesterday afternoon, at which point we rented a car and drove north along the coast to Asilah, a bit south of Tangier. This morning, after a solid nine hours of sleep and a fine breakfast, I strolled around the grounds of the hotel, and these are some of the sights I got to see.
There is a big field across the road from the hotel, and in the hedge of weeds between the road and the field, a few European greenfinches, which we’ve seen before in South Holland, were feasting from blossoms already gone to seed.
A little river runs to the Atlantic along the north side of the hotel, and this little egret, which we’ve seen before in Mozambique and Slovenia, perched in a palm tree on the riverbank to preen.
Finally, there is a little bridge over that river, which is now closed to car traffic, and on which I captured this image of my very first crested lark (Galerida cristata).
Lastly, here’s a striped hawk-moth (Hyles livornica), which I believe feeds from flowers while hovering like a hummingbird, as we’ve seen snowberry clearwings do in Estabrook Park. This one was cold, however, and even crawled up onto my fingers so that I could take its picture in the sun, after which I left it on a bush in the garden to warm up at its leisure.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 