My thought was: birders can help
Hi all
I only want to remember that this one of the most endangered vertebrates in the WP, and that lots of people making preasure over this tiny breeding group is not the best.
There is a huge area in Doukkala region were birdwatchers can seek for the species (between Safi, El Jadida and Khemis Zemamra), and possibly find new pairs or groups and contribute to the conservation of the species.
Hi Carlos & all,
Thank you Carlos for your post and for your concern about this population and sorry for miss-identifying your name and for upsetting you by posting this in the Birdforum.
By posting this news here, I only wanted people to know that Small Buttonquail is still present in Morocco, and I asked if someone has seen it elsewhere in Morocco. By this I was unofficially inviting birders to look for the species during their trips to Morocco and eventually report this in their trip reports and notes. I thought that this species unlike the Slender-billed Curlew for example, is not twitcheable, because it is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Therefore, if birders wanted to look for Small Buttonquails in Morocco, it is unlikely to cause threats to the species; in the contrary, birders can contribute to rediscover new populations of this enigmatic species and by this contribute to the effort to conserve these relic and endangered populations in the WP. As you said there is a huge area where people can search for the species, in the area you mentioned (Doukkala region) and also in the north where there are indications of the presence of the species somewhere near Larache.
Actually we have here in Morocco many cases of bird species discovered and added to the Moroccan list (and sometimes to the WP list) by observations of “amateur birders”. This was the case of at least 5 or 6 species in southern Morocco in recent years. I would like to give here the examples of these species to illustrate how the observations of visiting birders can be extremely important. Except from the Cape Gull, all other species were taken from the detailed article by
Thévenot & Bergier (2008).
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Cape Gull Larus dominicanus vetula in the Khnifiss Lagoon, southern Morocco. This species is first recorded there by visiting birders and with accumulation of records from different birders until eventually they discovered its breeding there. Bergier et al. (2009) summarised all the observations and the breeding record.
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Dunn’s Lark Eremalauda dunni was first discovered and added to the Moroccan list by birders in the Awserd region (south-east of Dakhla). See Lees & Moores (2006), Copete et al. (2008) and others cited by Thévenot & Bergier (2008).
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Black-crowned Finch Lark Eremopterix nigriceps albifrons. Since the observation of the species in southern Morocco by Valverde (1957), there is no recent records of the species until 1999 and onwards. Again this rediscovery was led by birders. Schollaert et al. (in Thévenot & Bergier 2008) were the first to record the birds in 1999.
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Desert Sparrow Passer simplex (subspecies
saharae or
simplex??) was unknown from the southernmost Western Saharan provinces until 1999 when Schollaert et al. (in Thévenot & Bergier 2008) discovered the species in the region. The birds were seen during subsequent trips and found the birds more widespread in the area.
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Cricket Warbler Spiloptila clamans, first record for Morocco was added by birders. The species was first observed and added to the Moroccan list by Pettersson et al. in February 2008 near Awserd region (in Thévenot & Bergier 2008). Subsequent visits to the region confirmed the observation.
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Dark Chanting Goshawk Melierax metabates, even this species was not formally recorded as a breeder in the region of Dakhla - Awserd, Copete et al. (2008) provided indications of the species’ presence in the region.
Bergier P., Zadane Y. & Qninba A. 2009. Cape Gull: a new breeding species in the Western Palearctic.
Birding World 22: 253-256.
Copete, J.L.; López, F.; López Velasco, D.; Castelló, J.; Armada, R. & Mariné, R. 2008. Breeding of Dunn’s Lark in Western Sahara.
Alula 14: 132-137.
Lees, A.C. & Moores, R.D. 2006. Identification and status of Dunn’s Lark in northwest Africa.
British Birds 99: 482-484.
Thévenot M. & Bergier P. 2008. Considérations sur les récentes découvertes avifaunistiques dans les environs d’Awserd (région d’Oued Ad-Deheb, Sahara Atlantique marocain).
Go-South Bull. 5: 98-103.
By these examples I showed that birder’s records can be sometimes very important especially in the case of unexplored regions or unknown species. I posted this here only to stimulate birders to look and report the species. By this I thought I joined your petition (
Petición de información) in the last page of your article. Can I send you a PM with my email, to send me the PDF? Because the one I have is of a scanned photos and is very heavy and difficult to read and thank you in advance.
Regards
) in the spring of 2009 ...
