Wildlife to see in Morocco in January
7 spectacles at their peak in Morocco in January, and 1 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Morocco in January in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in January
Wintering waders and ducks on Merja ZergaA continuous layer of wader contact calls over the lagoon, whole flocks lifting in a rush of wings when a marsh harrier crosses, flamingo honking from the shallows, and the bark of grey herons. Boatmen's pirogues are still mostly rowed or poled inside the lagoon.
Barbary macaque troops in the Middle Atlas cedar forestBarks, screams and the soft 'ooh' contact grunts of a troop moving through 30 m Atlas cedars, chest-thumping squabbles in the mating season, with Levaillant's woodpecker, firecrest and nuthatch in the canopy and wind in the cedars.
Marchica lagoon, the Moulouya mouth and the Mohammed V reservoir — the Mediterranean east in winterFlamingo honking across a lagoon the size of a city, wigeon whistling, shelduck, the bugling of common cranes at the Mohammed V shore at dusk, and in spring a booming bittern and avocet colony clamour at the Moulouya mouth. Nador's traffic and the fishermen's outboards are the backdrop; the Moulouya is quieter.
Saharan lagoons — Khnifiss and Dakhla Bay in winterFlamingo honking in the hundreds across a lagoon with no other sound at all, wader flocks lifting, the rattle of royal and Caspian terns, and on Dakhla Bay the blow of a humpback dolphin close to shore.
Sidi Moussa–Oualidia lagoons — 10,000 waders, flamingos and the salt-pan roostsAvocet and stilt yelping over the salt pans, godwit and dunlin flocks whirring up at each marsh harrier, flamingo honking from the lagoon, slender-billed gulls — against surf on the dune bar and the oyster farms' outboards.
White-headed ducks and marbled teal wintering on Lac Sidi BoughabaCoots, moorhens and purple swamphens whooping and grunting from the reeds at dusk, the growl of little grebes, marbled teal's thin whistles, and the only reliable Moroccan chorus of white-headed duck display rattles in late winter. Marsh owl wing-beats and barks over the northern reeds after dark.
Oued Souss estuary — Audouin's gulls, flamingos and waders at Agadir's doorA gull-and-wader soundscape: Audouin's gulls' nasal calls, slender-billed and laughing gulls, flamingos honking, stilts and greenshank — over Agadir's surf and the N10 bridge traffic. Not a hushed site, but a very accessible one.
Also going on in January
White storks bill-clattering on the Chellah walls, RabatDozens of pairs bill-clattering with heads thrown back on the minaret and the medieval walls, wings thumping on landing, and below them the cattle egret roost and the Bou Regreg valley.