Tag Archives: Morocco

Paper wasps in Morocco

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in insects, nature

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I was pondering what to post for this week’s world wildlife Wednesday when a friend who keeps bees posted some wonderful close-up photos on Facebook of the cells her bees had built and that reminded me of these photos I took in Morocco in 2014. These are not bees, of course, these are paper wasps, though I don’t know the exact species.

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We were wandering around the magnificent Roman ruins at Volubilis, admiring the incredible architecture and design skills of the Romans, when I spotted this equally amazing construction. As their name implies, these wasps use a papery material to construct their nests. In this case they probably gathered fibrous material from the stems of plants and perhaps from dead wood, which they then chewed up and mixed with saliva to cement the cells of the nest together.

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These wasps may look small but their stings can be vicious so, although it looks like I got quite close, these photographs were actually taken with my long lens.

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The donkeys of Morocco

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

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We’ve seen Mary Gillham and her many donkey friends, and we’ve looked at donkeys in Peru; now it’s time for the donkeys (and a horse or two, or perhaps a mule) of Morocco to show their charming faces. Morocco may be a rapidly westernising nation but equine power still rules in the narrow, meandering alleyways of the centuries-old medinas, where motorised vehicles will never fit or be welcomed, and in the more remote rural areas that roads do not, may never reach.

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If you’re exploring the medinas of ancient Moroccan cities, one word you must immediately commit to memory is balak because, if you don’t take heed and ‘watch out’ or ‘get out of the way’, you may well be bowled over by a donkey carrying anything from full panniers of groceries to back-breaking loads of animal skins bound for the local tanneries. These animals are not pets – they don’t have names – and they are worked hard but, for the most part, they are looked after because they are valuable assets, providing essential transportation services to their owners and customers alike.

If you’re a donkey lover and would like to read more about the donkeys of Morocco, I found this article from their quarterly Journeys magazine on the Smithsonian website – it’s a great read.

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‘The everlasting charm of fossils’

29 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in geology, molluscs, nature

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I’ve always been fascinated by fossils and would love to find a little something special (I’m hoping my move to the south Wales coast will help fulfil this dream as there are fossils, and even dinosaur bones, in nearby cliffs) so imagine my delight when we visited a fossil exhibition, museum, factory and shop during a tour of Morocco back in 2014.

We were near the town of Erfoud, in southern Morocco, an area which is now extremely arid but 500 million years ago was under the ocean. Some of the creatures that inhabited that ocean – in particular, the cephalopod molluscs and trilobite anthropods – became stranded in muddy lagoons that gradually dried out and, over time, the mud and creatures were transformed into a fine-grained calcareous rock containing the perfectly preserved fossilised creatures.

The museum-come-shop had some wonderful specimens on display and for sale, including large items like tables and lamp bases, wash basins and fountains. I couldn’t quite fit a table-top in my backpack but I did buy a couple of small trinkets, shown in the last photo included here. And if I do manage to find anything more local, I’ll definitely be posting about it!

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The stork that brings the baby

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

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When you were young and you asked your parents where babies came from, did they give you that old faithful answer, ‘The stork brings them’? Well, these are those storks.

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This is the European stork (Ciconia ciconia), and it seems the baby-delivery myth may have arisen, originally in Germany, from the fact that storks are migratory birds, leaving Europe for around 9 months over the winter before returning to breed in the springtime. The birds also breed in North Africa, which is where my photos were taken, in Morocco in June 2014.

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Apparently, there is an old Berber myth that storks are actually humans who have been transformed into birds. In the Muslim religion, storks are considered sacred, which may be because they appear to prostrate themselves in prayer when resting. However, there is also a tale told in Marrakesh, of a local man, dressed in the traditional white djellaba and black robe, who got drunk on wine and climbed a local minaret, all the while blaspheming. His punishment was transformation into a stork.

The cats of Morocco

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

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One of the reasons I love Morocco is because it’s a country crawling with cats. Moggies can be found everywhere, sleeping in mosques and medinas, lurking in the corners of market squares, and soaking up the sun near fishing boats.

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Due in part to their cleanliness, cats are revered in the Islamic religion. According to tradition, Muhammad prohibited the persecution and killing of cats, and Islam teaches that cats should not be sold for money or other goods, and must be treated well.

These are some of the furry felines I found in Morocco.