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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3244849" data-attributes="member: 12449">So onto the next day...21 June. Dakhla, Aousserd Road.Day two on the Aousserd road, no better place to spend dawn than at the excellent Oued Jenna, sometime haunt of Sudan Golden Sparrows, regular hang-out of just about the only accessible Cricket Warblers in the Western Palearctic.The sun was barely up, the temperature was a pleasant 25 C, a scraggly line of acacias marked the broad wadi. With camels ambling by, we set out on foot - an African Savannah Hare went hurtling off, a Southern Grey Shrike adorned an acacia, one Woodchat Shrike on the next. Moments later, the first distinctive chirps of a Cricket Warbler began to sound out and not many moments later, two were buzzing about in the low branches of an acacia, quite smart birds indeed. Little one was more impressed with the assorted assemblages of bones scattered across the desert, lugging great collections of them back towards the car! Leaving the initial pair of Cricket Warblers, we wandered a kilometre or so further, no less than 15 more Cricket Warblers encountered, several Desert Sparrows too. Also Desert Wheatears and a wandering pair of Brown-necked Ravens. A nearby wadi added a Rufous Bush Chat, more Desert Sparrows and a flock of Fulvous Babblers.I couldn't stay too long however - I wanted to get back to Gleb Jdiane to check my mammal traps. Four I had set, each with generous supplies of food. And of the four, three had little critters in residence ...a Western House Mouse in one, Pygmy Gerbils in the other two. Roping in my younger companion to assist in the photography of one of the Pygmy Gerbils, she lifted the trap door as I sat on the sand ready with the camera ...click click click, it worked a treat as the individual paused a while. Then much to the little one's amusement, it ran full speed at me, straight under my bum and there it stayed! Hmm, I had not expected that! Lifting myself, as someone else was falling around on the sand laughing, off it scarpered again. With that, we returned to the desert for an hour or so ...the best of the birds, three Cream-coloured Coursers, a few Hoopoe Larks and about 15 Bar-tailed Desert Larks. Top critter of the day though was a magnificant Spiny-tailed Lizard, a giant prehistoric looking thing strutting through the desert.As the heat climbed, we returned to Dakhla Bay to while the day away aside the sands and blue waters ...sand castles and paddling, a flock of 200 Greater Flamingoes, umpteen waders of assorted species, 50 or so Royal Terns, lesser numbers of Caspian Terns. Quite a relaxing day, not bad at all. Popping into Dakhla town late afternoon, a couple of Cory's Shearwaters cruised offshore, masses of Sandwich Terns milled, a few more Royal Terns too.Finally the sun began to drop, evening was approaching ...time to return to the Aousserd road, another night drive on the cards. Starting at km 75 at dusk, my plan for this session was to focus on the key 35 km stretch up to km 110, driving it both ways, thereafter wandering right up to Aousserd if I was still awake or had not bumped into anything beforehand. Again, the overwhelming feel was of far lower numbers of animals than reported some years before ...'plentiful rodents' and 'a dozen Fennec Foxes' most certainly did not figure in my notes, but as we two hit the road again, I really only had two targets to think about, namely Fennec Fox and Striped Sahara Polecat.A mere six kilometres into the drive, at km 81, one of these key species appeared just to the north of the road, the spotlight picking out a wonderful pair of Fennec Foxes sitting atop a small mount, quite possibly a den location. Humongous ears on bitty little bodies, classic desert animals. No big reaction from the animal, they sat and while and watched, then upped and ambled off, nice start to the evening. And that was almost it for the night ...in the following four hours, two more Lesser Egyptian Jerboas hopped across the road, one African Savannah Hare went lolloping off through the tussocks.Somewhere approaching 1 a.m., still feeling over the moon with the Sand Cat of the day before, I decided we had actually seen virtually all that we were realistically likely to encounter. The desert was largely quiet, so we pulled off and set up camp for the night.</blockquote>

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