Moulay Bousselham and Merja Zerga

A Ramsar Lagoon Of Some 70 Square Kilometres Where Flamingos Winter In Thousands And The African Marsh Owl Is Seen More Reliably Than Anywhere Else In The Country, With Local Boatmen Doing The Birding Runs · Moulay Bousselham, Rabat-Sale-Kenitra

Behind a dune on the Atlantic between Larache and Kenitra lies a lagoon of about 70 square kilometres that is one of the best birdwatching sites in North Africa, and in front of the dune a small scruffy beach village that fills with Moroccan families every August and empties completely by October. The two halves do not have much to do with each other. Merja Zerga is shallow, brackish and fed by a narrow sea channel, and in winter it holds flamingos in thousands along with spoonbills, slender-billed gulls, marbled teal and waders in numbers that make a scope worth carrying; it is also the most dependable place in Morocco to find the African marsh owl, which is why British and Dutch birders have been coming here for decades. The way to see it is to walk down to the jetty in the morning and hire a boatman for a couple of hours. The village gives the lagoon its name from the shrine of a tenth-century saint, does good fish grills, and has rooms for very little money.

Lagoon village on the Atlantic between Larache and Kenitra, with the Merja Zerga wetland behind the dune, Moulay Bousselham, Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Morocco

The lagoon, the dune and the beach are open all the time and free. Boat trips are arranged in person at the jetty or through a guesthouse, run from first light through the day, and are purely weather-dependent - a strong onshore wind cancels them. Early morning is both the best birding and the calmest water, so a trip arranged the night before for dawn is the standard plan. There is no visitor centre, no hide and nobody collecting a fee. The village shops and grills work a daily cycle and shrink to almost nothing out of season, with some places shutting from October to spring, so a winter visit should not count on a choice of restaurants. Grand taxis run from Larache and Kenitra; the turning is signed off the N1 and the last stretch is surfaced.

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