I visited the mouth of Oued Souss during three high tides on 2 and 3 April and was pleased by the high numbers of waterbirds (gulls, terns and waders). They were passing through, most of them just pausing a while before moving off north. The following species were noted:

5 Common Shelducks, 2 Ruddy Shelducks, 10 Mallards, 2 Marbled Ducks, 7 Little Grebes (golf course pool), 20 adult Greater Flamingos, one White Stork, 2 Eurasian Spoonbills, 20 Grey Herons, 40 Little Egrets, 30 sinensis Great Cormorants, 1 Osprey, several Eurasian Stone-curlews, up to 30 Euasian Oystercatchers, up to 200 Black-winged Stilts, up to 120 Pied Avocets, 20 Grey Plovers, c 100 Common Ringed Plovers, sound Little Ringed Plovers, c 100 Kentish Plovers, 15 Black-tailed Godwit (on 3/4), 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 5 Eurasian Curlews, 10 Common Redshanks, 10 Common Greenshanks, 1 Wood Sandpiper, 5 Common Sandpipers, 40 Red Knots, 20 Sanderlings, 15 Little Stints, 30 Dunlins, 15 Ruff, 1 adult & 5 first-winter Slender-billed Gulls, 50+ Black-headed Gulls, 1 adult & 1 first-winter Audouin’s Gull, 20 first-winter Mediterranean Gulls, 1 bleached and worn first-winter Common Gull (3 April), quite a few Yellow-legged Gulls, quite a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 100 Gull-billed Terns, 2 Caspian Terns, 200 Sandwich Terns, 1 adult Whiskered Tern, 1 Little Tern

(Arnoud van den Berg)