Natural Selection

I have come on a split Algeria tour despite not being a serious Western Palearctic lister. Everyone else needs Algerian Nuthatch in the northern oak forests and several birds on the fringe of their ranges in the south. I very much wanted Algerian Nuthatch obviously, because they only occur in Algeria and I’ll never be coming this way again.

Our first day was eventful for mostly the wrong reasons. One of our party was refused permission to travel and was eventually allowed on a later flight. Three of us (me included) were not afforded the luxury of our luggage coming on our flight, one of us (not me) still hasn’t got theirs. So basically we went to the botanical gardens in Algiers whilst we waited for all this to sort out. We had Levaillant’s Woodpecker and Common Bulbul among others.

Today we headed to a potential site up in the oak forests in the hills for the nuthatch. It was pretty tough going. The spirits were kept up by a Maghreb Owl for a long while, which we kept at a respectful distance from but as it was perched in the open good views were had by all.

This is generally recognised as a separate species from Tawny Owl based on vocalisations etc, so was nice to see so well.

Wind and some reasonably heavy showers meant we’d still not seen the nuthatch by lunchtime. We dropped to lower altitude where they occasionally appear, and were entertained by the very distinctive and attractive local Coal Tits:

And a pair of Cirl Buntings:

As well as two species of woodpeckers, the local race of Jay etc. The weather calmed down and the sun came out so we decided to head back up to the prime Nuthatch territory for another go. To cut to the chase we had splendid views of a pair. The male is illustrated at the top and also below:

The female was a little less showy and is shown here:

For many years this species was off limits to foreign birders. I certainly didn’t expect to see them, so it was a special day enjoying them in superb scenery with like minded people.