I can quite honestly say that Anza, a fishing port just north of Agadir, is a place that is truly disgusting. That I didn't die from a variety of horrible diseases is pretty miraculous. There are a couple of fish processing plants that have run-offs into the sea, with a bit of raw sewage thrown in for good measure. These are fabulously attractive to birds, especially Gulls. Yuck! 

However it was another good opportunity to practice both flight photography and the exposure of whites, both things that I wish I could do better. Also a good opportunity to try out flight photography in vertical format which means less chance of clipping the wings when a bird banks. The Gulls were 90% Lesser Black-backed, 10% Yellow Legged, and 100% scabby! If you do want a place with heaps of Yellow Legs guaranteed, you could do worse than go here, but you need to get there early before the light becomes very harsh, but also the factory needs to start up, so in reality you do not have a lot of time at your disposal. The biggest issue was targeting a single bird and remaining with it and getting a clear shot, as there are so many other birds swirling round that they get in front, they end up in the frame, they obscure the target and throw the AF......All good fun. I can still smell the place today!

I'm about two months late with this post, sorry, I'm a little busy. Anyhow, back to Morocco, and our penultimate day spent in the Oued Massa. We spent the first half of the day getting a guided tour of some of the good birds, but decided that it was ultimately too restricting on the photography front and so proceeded alone into the fields between a couple of the villages. Here I found the best Stonechat in the entire world and proceeded to lay waste to it for about half an hour. Chats are easily my favourite group of birds, I find I make excuses to photograph them more than anything else. The bird remained faithful to a low bush allowing for some very pleasing clean backgrounds, and the light was sensationally nice in the late afternoon. All handheld I think, so that I could get exactly the right angle with the minimum of fuss - shutter speeds around 1/3200s so no worries on the wobble front. Such a compliant bird, everything fell into place, and as a result one of my most satisfying bursts ever! The first image is my favourite - I took so many, and ended up having to delete most of them as they were all identical. Will I ever learn?! Probably not, but these situations come about rarely, and most often than not you really have to work at it in order to create them. For this one I simply bowled up, but the method was the same - get cracking with that shutter!

My single most satisfying image from Morocco was of a Red-rumped Wheatear. This was a bird that I had seen only briefly on my first visit to Morocco, and that had been in the heat of the day on Tagdilt track as the birds (a pair) fed on the flies attracted by a number of chicken carcasses. Heat haze and the stench were most off-putting, so putting this species very firmly on the "most wanted" list in terms of targets for any subsequent visit. It didn't start well - although there were many more birds that I had seen previously, getting close to them was nigh on impossible.

On one of our desert forays we parked the car in a likely spot and the three of us parted ways. We had stopped the car because of a pair of Wheatear, and I had seen the male disappear up a wadi. The heat was building and even though sensing I was almost bound to fail, I gamely set off in pursuit. I got close to it twice, and this is the result. I snuck up on it by crawling along the bottom of the wadi, and then popping up roughly where I thought it was. Bingo! I'll make no bones about it, I bloody love this photo, a clean background, a cocked tail and a lovely little over the shoulder head turn. It could have done a little more head turn but this angle is, for me at least, in the exact arc that makes me happy. Techy stuff - Canon 1D Mk IV (when this dies I do not know what I will do), with the 500mm and 1.4x converter, atop my trusty monopod. Settings were ISO 500 (no particular reason), 1/2000s, and f8. Looking back, I also see that I am in AV mode. This isn't normal, I think it was because it was on and off sunshine earlier in the day had meant that Manual mode was a pain the arse. I've dialled in +1/3rd, this is a common thing I do in AV as I like a bright image. It's a slight crop, perhaps 70%, and I've cloned out a distracting twig that came up and under the breast towards the leg. This is just me being picky, the image was a belter even without that (again, just my opinion!). It's just one of those grab shots that really makes me smile as I remember what it took for me to get it, crawling along, guessing, and finally nailing it after half an hour or so. I got a few more images of it elsewhere, but this is by far the nicest - I've done a portrait version as well, which is a crop of the original landscape with canvas added in at the top and filled with sky. I am undecided which I like best, so here are both.