Morocco’s High Atlas

Tours that take the strain out of enjoying Europe’s flora and fauna! Tours under this banner will be based in just a couple of good quality hotels, and will have direct flights. And most importantly, field trips will be kept to a maximum of six or so hours giving you plenty of time to relax before and after.

Marrakech is our gateway to the majestic scenery of the High Atlas Mountains. The little hamlet of Imagira is our base, set in the valley above Asni on the route up to the famous Tiz n’Test Pass. From here we’ll explore hillsides decorated with creamy Narcissus bulbocodium subspecies pallidus above richly coloured fields full of Lupins, Cladanthus, Silenes, Muscaris and Lavandulas where Clouded Yellows, Moroccan Orange-tips and Greenish Black-tips will provide a feast of colour for our cameras. At the ski resort of Oukaimeden pretty Romulea bifrons forms colonies in short turf where Crimson-winged Finches feed by melting snow, and descending we’ll stop to photograph White Storks at the nest, and the dazzling colours of Moussier’s Redstarts will keep us enthralled. We’ll visit the gorgeous Berber village of Imlil under the shadow great Mount Aksoual in Toubkal National Park. Cherry blossom drapes the village, the sinuous line of the streams picked out by walnut groves from whence the calls of Levaillant’s Green Woodpeckers seem always within hearing. Flocks of Alpine Chough play in cheeky flocks about the village whilst on the slopes above are golden Narcissus jeanmonodii, rare ivory-white Narcissus watieri, and Colchicum triphyllum. We’ll spend an afternoon enjoying the sights of exotic Marrakech after a spot of birdwatching on the N’Fiss reservoir where Squacco Herons, Ruddy Shelduck, and various waders, wildfowl and terns congregate during migration, as do mixed flocks of Yellow Wagtails. Endemic Tristram’s Warblers and Atlas Geckos inhabit the drier warmer Sahara-facing slopes where we’ll find Chapman’s Green Hairstreak and Moroccan Hairstreak. Here are an assortment of often beautiful toadflaxes, notably stripey Linaria ventricosa and climbing Linaria sagittaria and the striking bushy purple and yellow Polygala baetica.

Barbary Falcons patrol the rocky gorges where we’ll find Dipcadi serotinum and the little iris Gynandris monophylla whose blooms need many hours of daylight to awake them. There are so many unusual flowers; there’s the amazing little daisy Anacyclus depressus subspecies gelidus whose innocuous looking flowers make one gasp when turned over, so pure and bright is the scarlet on the underside. There’s pink-hued Anacyclus pyrethrum, elegant Rhodanthemum atlanticum, pretty Bellis caerulea, an orange-red form of Anagallis monellii, and the chunky wine-red heads of Anthyllis vulneraria reuteri.