Looks like I will be here until at least January now. As autumn has made it a little cooler I have been wandering further afield and noticing my surroundings in more detail.

I have no expertise in natural history, but with the aid of the internet I have been able to understand and identify quite a lot of things. If you have only recently started reading this blog, you might benefit from reading my post of a walk around the valley first.

The valley is about a mile wide at the beach, and for 2 or 3 miles inland, then it widens out as it rises towards the distant mountains of the Rif. It runs south to north. On the eastern side the hills rise quickly to about 1000 ft, but on the western side they remain at about 500 ft for the first couple of miles. I have no maps, but my phone has GPS and the compass app tells me my height, so these are accurate figures. I can only guess at the height of the distant mountains as being about 2000 ft, but they could be much higher.

This is not a view down a mountain side! It was taken from the track at the top of the river bank looking down at the river bed maybe 15 feet below. It shows the underlying shaley gravel that, I think, runs under the whole of the bottom of the valley. It seems to erode very easily.

This is a cliff of the boulder clay that overlays the shaley gravel everywhere except the actual river bed. In the best fields close to the river, it is overlaid with a loamy silt (presumably from seasonal flooding), but everywhere else the fields and hillsides are basically stony clay with an admixture of sand.

The Oued Amsa, like many in Morocco,  is a seasonal river. When we arrived at the end of June it just about reached the sea. Most of its flow must be underground, as large parts were completely dry, though flow was still detectable, and it is home to some small fish. During July and August it became drier and drier. Normally the rain arrives in September and October, but this year there was only 1 day of rain in late October. We have had a couple of thunder storms and rainy days in the last fortnight, and more of the puddles have joined up now, but it is still possible to walk all the way from the beach to the village along the river bed without getting your feet wet. The lack of rain has delayed the ploughing, which has now been done at great speed.

This is a view of the upper valley from a height of about 700 ft up the ridge of one of the side valleys. The white line on the left is the tarmac road (to nowhere) that runs up the valley. The dry river bed  is on the right, and the other lines are gravel tracks. The hillsides are largely small scrub; the trees down in the valley are mainly olives.

I was surprised to realise that there are no old trees anywhere except for a very few near the river. In particular there are no gnarled ancient olive trees such as you find in Spain.

This old tree stump in the dry river bed is evidence that there were once large trees. On inquiring I was told that 40 to 50 years ago, when Amsa was just a small village with no seaside tourism at all, many villagers decided to increase their income by growing marijuana. To do so they cleared ground up the hillsides by burning. Due to over enthusiasm and carelessness they accidentally burnt virtually whole of the lower valley, and much of the tree cover on the upper hillsides of the upper valley. The Government then stepped in and terminated the marijuana growing.

The forest extends eastwards a long way, but to the west, it had long ago been cut down. There are wild boar in the forests, but after they started digging in the village fields, they were all hunted down and none have been seen for many years. It is an interesting question, that no-one in the family has been able to get an answer to, as to what muslims do with wild boar after they have killed them. It is haram (forbidden) to eat it, but it is also haram to kill an animal just for sport. Probably they were sold to Spaniards.

The hillsides are home to at least two types of snakes. There is a harmless green one that I have not seen and a poisonous one. One of the latter made the mistake of coming under one of our gates one evening.

It was about a yard long. There was no way to remove it safely, so unfortunately it had to be killed.

This tortoise was on the path to the village one day. It stuck its head back in its shell as soon as I got my phone out to take its photo!

This frog is one of a couple that live in the garden. There is a shallow tiled pond in the shape of a keyhole around the fountain. We now have quite a lot of tadpoles. It doesn’t show in the photo, but they are bright green with bright yellow eyes. I think any others must live near the river, as the hillsides are far too dry.

This toad was another recent visitor, only feet away from the dining area.

An autumn view across the bay. I found a clump of pines to provide shade one day whilst reading. Just below this spot is a Guard Post. I had been there less than 5 minutes when a guard appeared to find out what I was doing. Normally they carry automatic rifles, but he cannot have been too worried as he only had a radio. They are tough looking men who combine forest ranger and coastguard duties. There is serious drug smuggling all along the coast, with routes along the crests of the hills and through the forests.

The beach is visited by seagulls, but only when the weather is windy and the summer visitors have gone. None seem to live locally at all. You might expect them to follow the little fishing boats back, but they don’t.

This monster beetle does live in the beach though. Apparently he burrows into it. This is actually the gritty sand, not the rocky river bed.

Just back from the beach is a large fresh water pond, a different habitat entirely.

These wild geese are resident. I have never seen them other than sleeping, so haven’t been able to identify them.

These are just 2 of many mallards. If you look closely you can see a terrapin swimming near the bottom of the photo.

Little egrets (white) are ubiquitous throughout the valley, but the glossy ibis is a recent arrival on the scene.

There is a bridge built on a sort of embankment across the river which forms the upper end of the pond, and these terrapins are members of a family of about 15 that lives in and around the bridge. Sometimes as many as 10 will be basking on the rock in the sun. If a large one wants to climb up the rock and a small one is in its way, it just unceremoniously tips it into the water with a swipe of a front leg. There are many more terrapins living in the banks of the river wherever small ponds lasts all summer long. I generally just hear a plop as they disappear into the water,

A few days after the first rain, dozens of dragonflies appeared, I believe the blue one is an Epaulet Skimmer and the other an Orange Winged Dropwing, both common species in Morocco. There was a third variety, but I never got a good enough photo to identify it. The orange one flew at about twice the speed of the skimmer.

This is the result of my attempts to photograph waterboatmen. Every white dot is where the sun has caught the slight depression they make in the surface of the water.

This white butterfly was feeding on ‘false yellowhead’. There was also an orange and black butterfly, but I never managed a good photo of it.

I was going to write about the flora of the valley today as well, but I think that will be better left for my next post, as I have numerous photos, even though I wasn’t here in the Spring when there would have been more flowers in bloom.

Keep safe