Mauritania is a little known and seldom-visited country with very little infrastructure, but it is very safe to travel, offers some spectacular scenery and, above all for the birdwatching traveller, has the Banc d’Arguin National Park, an area of great importance for wintering and breeding seabirds and waders. Local people are generally pleasant and easy-going, and the country is relatively relaxed for an Islamic republic, enjoying a rather stable parliamentary democracy. The fact that so little is written about the country in terms of birdwatching makes it the more interesting for the adventurous birder willing to find his own birds.

In February 2004 a non-birding friend and I organised an 11-day trip to visit the central areas of the country, plus Banc d’Arguin. We flew with Air Mauritanie from Las Palmas (Canary Islands) to Nouakchott, the capital. The flight stops at Nouadhibou first, a city close to the Banc D’Arguin area that would be the ideal starting point for a more birding-oriented trip.
In Nouakchott we rented a ’95 Nissan Patrol (a 4WD vehicle is mandatory) with driver and guide, through the agency Randonnées Tours (see below for addresses), which we had contacted previously from Madrid. These people will take you wherever you want, or help you design your itinerary.

They have English-speaking guides available (French being the only widely spoken language in the country, apart from Arabic). The whole package, including accommodation and food, cost €1,300 for 2 people.

Many of the tracks through the desert are dreadful, and in some cases there is simply no track at all. It's important to make sure that the car you rent has 2 spare tyres at least, plus generous provisions of water. Mauritanian drivers seem to have a happy-go-lucky attitude towards high-speed driving through the desert. We had 4 flat tyres in just 8 days, and considering the way our driver behaved I was surprised that we didn't have any more serious trouble.

The local currency is the ouguiya; at the time, €1=2,33 ouguiyas, officially. A better rate can be found at hotels and travel agencies, and much better with the black market exchangers who will pester you around the town market.

We drove through the central mountains and deserts of the region of Adrar and the oasis found along the way to the town of Ouadane, then back through the desert to the coast and Banc d’Arguin. It wasn’t really a birding trip (these are the disadvantages of travelling with sane, normal people); in fact, except for Banc d’Arguin, the area we visited is probably the poorest in the country in terms of bird species. It gets more interesting in the southern area as it gets closer to the Sahel region, with species like Black Scrub-robin, Northern Ground Hornbill, Northern Carmine Bee-eater… that I didn’t get the chance to see. However, the landscapes are beautiful, ranging from endless sand dune extensions to rugged mountains and canyons, all in a rather mild climate that in some areas could get really cold at night.

Rather than a day-by-day report what follows is a commented birdlist, with details on the most interesting species I found in the trip and the places where I saw them, plus a more detailed account on Banc d’Arguin.

Some useful addresses

- Randonnées Tours. 22, Avenue Charles De Gaulle, BP 4992, Nouakchott, Mauritania. Ph. (222) 525 95 35, fax (222) 525 95 39.

- Direction du Parc National du Banc d'Arguin. Av. Gamal-abdel-Nasser, BP 5355, Nouakchott. Ph. (222) 25 84 41, fax (222) 25 85 42.
e-mail: pnba@mauritania.mr

- Hotel Halima. BP 5144, ph.(222) 25 79 20 (near the Presidence building). This is where we lodged when in Nouakchott. Good value for around 20,000 ouguiyas. Has a bar, but no alcohol served. For a beer, the bar in the much more expensive Hotel Mercure is just around the corner, again in Av. Gamal-abdel-Nasser, ph. (222) 25 50 50.

Mauritania is only partially included in the Western Palearctic, and it’s not considered as part of North Africa by many authors. Therefore it’s in a sort of zoogeographical limbo, and it’s not easy to find specific literature about its fauna.

- The bird guide used in the trip was the new (2003) Birds of Africa South of the Sahara, by Ian Sinclair and Peter Ryan (Struik, Cape Town, S. Africa). An excellent book and, considering the range covered, not too bulky to be carried around.

- Amphibians and Reptiles of North Africa. H. H. Schleich, W. Kästle & K. Kabisch, Koeltz Scientific Publishers, Koenigstein, Germany (1996). An excellent reference book, covering Morocco, Lybia, Tunisia and Egypt.

- In French: Guide des Oiseaux du Parc National du Banc d'Arguin. P. Gowthorpe, B. Lamarche, et al. Published by the Direction du Parc National du Banc d'Arguin (1996), it can be bought at its office (see address above). Describes the park and gives a detailed account of all the bird species found, their status and numbers, including photos. A good buy if you are lucky enough to find the Park's office open; if not, try the bookstore in Av. Gamal-abdel-Nasser, where this and other interesting titles on the region can be found, including the one below.

- Also in French: Entre le Sahara et l'Atlantique: Le Parc National du Banc d'Arguin. Pierre Campredon (FIBA / WWF, Arles, 2000. ISBN 2-9514914-0-9). A beautifully published softcover book with excellent photos, about the park, its wildlife and its human population.

- Lonely Planet: West Africa, 5th edition. M. Fitzpatrick, A. Burke, et al. (2002).
- In French: Objectif Aventure: Mauritanie. Bernard Nantet (Arthaud, Paris, 2001).
- In Spanish: La Guía de Marruecos y Mauritania. Roger Mimó (Distrimapas Telstar, Barcelona, 1999).

The one I could find in Madrid was the 1:2,000,000 published by International Travel Maps, which proved quite good. As usual with Arabic-speaking countries, caution is needed with the names of places, since they can be spelled or even named differently depending on the signpost, map or person of source; for instance, we saw the village at the entrance of Banc d’Arguin as Amghar, Nouamghar and Mamghar. In the following account I use the names that appear in the map, although they’re usually different to those used by local people or even official signposts (see photo below).