Cattle Egret near Volubilis, Morocco
Cattle egret near Volubilis, Morocco
While travelling from Meknes to Fes in Morocco our guide asked the bus driver to stop briefly on the side of the road so we could take some photos. This was near the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis. I’ll show photos of birds seen there in the coming days.
Across the road from our bus a farmer was ploughing his field using two donkeys to pull the plough. Donkeys were a common sight in both Morocco and Ethiopia. As the ground was tilled, several Cattle Egrets followed along, taking the opportunity to feast on worms and beetles and insects disturbed by the implement.
Farmer near Volubilis, Morocco
Rose-crowned Fruit-dove
Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, Adelaide Zoo
On a recent visit to Adelaide Zoo, I focussed particularly on bird species. This zoo has an excellent collection of Australian birds plus a few exotics.
I managed this one photo of a Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, a species I have yet to see in the natural state. Sorry that the photo is slightly blurred – it was taken through the wire netting of the aviary.
Australia has six species in the family known as fruit-doves. Their diet is predominantly fruit, of course. This colourful species can be found in the northern extremes of Western Australia and the Northern Territory and from Cape York in Queensland down the eastern coast to about the Sydney region, sometimes even further south.