Birds, plants and more in Sussex and beyond

In early May, Bridget and I visited Morocco for the third time using the services of the excellent Gayuin Birding Tours  http://gayuin.com  Most of the photographs in the blogpost that follows are mine except for a few of the better ones taken on 8th May by Hamid Birdwatching  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010514010519 Tuesday 3rd  May Our half full EasyJet flight from Gatwick North Terminal departed bang on time at 06:25, arriving just over 3 hours later at a cloudy Marrakech. Immigration was the usual protracted affair (how long does it take to scrutinise a passport?) but surprisingly there was no checking of our Covid paperwork and seemingly no need for the ‘mandatory’ PCR tests we’d had done less than 48 hours before. Having reclaimed our baggage and changed some money into local currency (£1 = 11.7 Dirham), we headed out of the arrival hall where the familiar face of Hamid was there to meet us and our first Moroccan birds ( Kestrel ,  Pallid Swift  and  Spotless Starl