List of Birds of Mauritania

Mauritania has some of the most important coastal wetlands in Africa and with a species list of over 500; the intrepid birdwatcher will be well rewarded. Perhaps the following quote from Lonely Planet will whet the appetite: “bird watchers are the luckiest travelers; the 200 km Banc d’Arguin is arguably the best spot on the planet to indulge ornithological passions.

• Abdim’s stork
• Abyssinian ground hornbill
• Abyssinian roller
• African blue flycatcher
• African collared dove
• African crake
• African cuckoo
• African darter
• African desert warbler
• African fish eagle
• African golden oriole
• African gray hornbill
• African gray woodpecker
• African green pigeon
• African harrier-hawk
• African hawk eagle
• African hobby
• African jacana
• African mourning dove
• African openbill
• African palm-swift
• African paradise flycatcher
• African pied hornbill
• African pied wagtail
• African pipit
• African pygmy goose
• African pygmy kingfisher
• African reed warbler
• African scop’s owl
• African silver-bill
• African skimmer
• African spoonbill
• African swamphen
• African yellow-white-eye
• Allen’s gallinule
• Alpine swift
• American golden-plover
• Aquatic warbler
• Arabian bustard
• Arctic tern
• Audouin’s gull
• Baillon’s crake
• Baird’s sandpiper
• Balearic shearwater
• Band-rumped storm petrel
• Bank swallow
• Barbary falcon
• Barn owl
• Barn swallow
• Barolo shearwater
• Bar-tailed godwit
• Bar-tailed lark
• Bateleur
• Bearded barbet
• Bearded vulture
• Beaudouin’s snake-eagle
• Beautiful sunbird
• Black crake
• Black heron
• Black kite
• Black noddy
• Black redstart
• Black scimitar-bill
• Black scrub-robin
• Black stork
• Black tern
• Black wheatear
• Black-bellied bustard
• Black-bellied plover
• Black-billed wood dove
• Black-crowned crane
• Black-crowned night heron
• Black-crowned sparrow-lark
• Black-crowned tchagra
• Black-eared wheatear
• Black-headed gull
• Black-headed heron
• Black-headed lapwing
• Black-headed weaver
• Black-legged kittiwake
• Black-rumped waxbill
• Black-tailed godwit
• Black-winged bishop
• Black-winged kite
• Black-winged pratincole
• Black-winged stilt
• Blue rock thrush
• Blue-bellied roller
• Blue-breasted kingfisher
• Blue-cheeked bee-eater
• Blue-napped mouse bird
• Blue-spotted wood dove
• Bluethroat
• Bonaparte’s gull
• Bonelli’s eagle
• Booted eagle
• Brambling
• Brant
• Bridled tern
• Broad-billed roller
• Broad-billed sandpiper
• Bronze-winged courser
• Brown babbler
• Brown booby
• Brown snake eagle
• Brown-backed woodpecker
• Brown-chested lapwing
• Brown-necked raven
• Brown-rumped bunting
• Brubru
• Bruce’s green pigeon
• Buff-spotted woodpecker
• Bulwer’s petrel
• Bush petronia
• Cardinal woodpecker
• Caspian plover
• Caspian tern
• Cattle egret
• Chestnut-backed sparrow-lark
• Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse
• Chestnut-bellied starling
• Cinereous vulture
• Collard flycatcher
• Collared pratincole
• Common bulbul
• Common buzzard
• Common chaff-finch
• Common chiffchaff
• Common crane
• Common cuckoo
• Common gonolek
• Common grasshopper warbler
• Common greenshank
• Common gull
• Common house-martin
• Common kingfisher
• Common linnet
• Common murre
• Common nightingale
• Common ostrich
• Common pochard
• Common redshank
• Common redstart
• Common ringed plover
• Common sandpiper
• Common scoter
• Common shelduck
• Common snipe
• Common swift
• Common tern
• Common wood pigeon
• Copper sunbird
• Coqui francolin
• Corn bunting
• Corn crake
• Cory’s shearwater
• Cream-colored courser
• Crested lark
• Croaking cisticola
• Crowned sandgrouse
• Curlew sandpiper
• Cut-throat
• Dark-chanting goshawk
• Denham’s bustard
• Desert cisticola
• Desert lark
• Desert sparrow
• Desert wheatear
• Dideric cuckoo
• Dunlin
• Dunn’s lark
• Dwarf bittern
• Eastern olivaceous warbler
• Egyptian goose
• Egyptian nightjar
• Egyptian plover
• Egyptian vulture
• Eleonora’s falcon
• Eurasian blackbird
• Eurasian blackcap
• Eurasian coot
• Eurasian crag-martin
• Eurasian curlew
• Eurasian dotterel
• Eurasian eagle-owl

• Eurasian golden oriole
• Eurasian griffon
• Eurasian hobby
• Eurasian hoopoe
• Eurasian jackdaw
• Eurasian kestrel
• Eurasian marsh harrier
• Eurasian moorhen
• Eurasian nightjar
• Eurasian oystercatcher
• Eurasian reed warbler
• Eurasian scop’s owl
• Eurasian skylark
• Eurasian sparrow-hawk
• Eurasian spoonbill
• Eurasian thick-knee
• Eurasian turtle dove
• Eurasian wigeon
• Eurasian wryneck
• European bee-eater
• European golden-plover
• European greenfinch
• European honey buzzard
• European pied flycatcher
• European robin
• European roller
• European starling
• European storm petrel
• Familiar chat
• Fea’s petrel
• Ferruginous pochard
• Fine-spotted woodpecker
• Flappet lark
• Four-banded sandgrouse
• Fox kestrel
• Fulvous chatterer
• Fulvous whistling duck
• Gabar goshawk
• Garden warbler
• Giant kingfisher
• Glossy ibis
• Glossy-backed drongo
• Golden eagle
• Golden nightjar
• Golden-breasted bunting
• Golden-tailed woodpecker
• Goliath heron
• Gosling’s bunting
• Grasshopper buzzard
• Gray heron
• Gray kestrel
• Gray wagtail
• Gray-backed fiscal
• Gray-headed gull
• Gray-headed kingfisher
• Gray-headed sparrow
• Grayish eagle-owl
• Great bittern
• Great black-backed gull
• Great cormorant
• Great egret
• Great gray shrike
• Great reed warbler
• Great shearwater
• Great skua
• Great snipe
• Great spotted cuckoo
• Great swamp warbler
• Great white pelican
• Greater blue-eared glossy starling
• Greater flamingo
• Greater honeyguide
• Greater hoopoe-lark
• Greater painted snipe
• Greater short-toed lark
• Greater white-fronted goose
• Greater whitethroat
• Green bee-eater
• Green sandpiper
• Green wood hoopoe
• Green-winged pytilia
• Green-winged teal
• Gull-billed tern
• Hadada ibis
• Hamerkop
• Helmeted guineafowl
• Hen harrier
• Heuglin’s masked weaver
• Heuglin’s wheatear
• Hooded vulture
• Houbara bustard
• House bunting
• House sparrow
• Icterine warbler
• Intermediate egret
• Isabelline shrike
• Isabelline wheatear
• Jack snipe
• Kentish plover
• Kitilitz’s plover
• Klaas’s cuckoo
• Knob-billed duck
• Kordofan lark
• Lanner falcon
• Lappet-faced vulture
• Laughing dove
• Laughing gull
• Leach’s storm petrel
• Lesser black-backed gull
• Lesser crested tern
• Lesser flamingo
• Lesser gray shrike
• Lesser honeyguide
• Lesser jacana
• Lesser kestrel
• Lesser short-toed lark
• Lesser striped swallow
• Lesser whitethroat
• Levaillant’s cuckoo
• Lichtenstein’s sandgrouse
• Little bee-eater
• Little bittern
• Little crake
• Little egret
• Little gray woodpecker
• Little grebe
• Little green woodpecker
• Little gull
• Little owl
• Little stint
• Little swift
• Little tern
• Little weaver
• Little-ringed plover
• Long-billed pipit
• Long-crested eagle
• Long-legged buzzard
• Long-tailed cormorant
• Long-tailed glossy starling
• Long-tailed jaeger
• Long-tailed nightjar
• Madeira petrel
• Maghreb lark
• Maghreb magpie
• Magnificent frigatebird
• Malachite kingfisher
• Mallard
• Manx shearwater
• Marabou stork
• Marsh owl
• Marsh sandpiper
• Martial eagle
• Masked shrike
• Meadow pipit
• Mediterranean gull
• Melodious warbler
• Mocking cliff-chat
• Montagu’s harrier
• Mosque swallow
• Mountain wagtail
• Mourning wheatear
• Moustached scrub warbler
• Namaqua dove
• Neumann’s starling
• Northern anteater-chat
• Northern black flycatcher
• Northern carmine bee-eater
• Northern crombec
• Northern fiscal
• Northern gannet
• Northern lapwing
• Northern paradise whydah
• Northern pintail
• Northern puffback
• Northern wheatear
• Northern white-faced owl
• Nubian bustard
• Olive-backed pipit
• Orange bishop
• Orange-cheeked waxbill
• Ortolan bunting
• Osprey
• Pale flycatcher
• Pallid harrier
• Pallid swift

• Pearl-spotted owlet
• Pectoral sandpiper
• Pharaoh eagle-owl
• Piapiac
• Pied avocet
• Pied crow
• Pied cuckoo
• Pied kingfisher
• Pink-backed pelican
• Pin-tailed whydah
• Plain martin
• Plain nightjar
• Plain swift
• Plain-backed pipit
• Pomarine jaeger
• Purple glossy starling
• Purple heron
• Purple sandpiper
• Pygmy sunbird
• Quail plover
• Razorbill
• Red kite
• Red knot
• Red-backed shrike
• Red-billed firefinch
• Red-billed quelea
• Red-billed tropicbird
• Red-cheeked cordon-bleu
• Red-chested swallow
• Red-eyed dove
• Red-faced cisticola
• Red-footed falcon
• Red-necked buzzard
• Red-necked falcon
• Red-necked nightjar
• Red-necked phalarope
• Red-phalarope
• Red-rumped swallow
• Red-rumped wheatear
• Red-shouldered cuckoo-shrike
• Red-thighed sparrow-hawk
• Red-throated bee-eater
• Red-throated pipit
• Richard’s pipit
• Ring ouzei
• Ring-billed gull
• Rock martin
• Rock pigeon
• Rock pratincole
• Rock-loving cisticola
• Roseate tern
• Rose-ringed parakeet
• Royal tern
• Ruddy shelduck
• Ruddy turnstone
• Ruff
• Rufous-crowned roller
• Rufous-tailed rock-thrush
• Rufous-tailed scrub-robin
• Ruppell’s griffon
• Sabine’s gull
• Sacred ibis
• Saddle-billed stork
• Sanderling
• Sandwich tern
• Sardinian warbler
• Savi’s warbler
• Savile’s bustard
• Scarlet-chested sunbird
• Scissor-tailed kite
• Scopoli’s shearwater
• Secretary bird
• Sedge warbler
• Semi-palmated sandpiper
• Senegal batis
• Senegal cuckoo
• Senegal parrot
• Senegal thick-knee
• Sennar penduline tit
• Shikra
• Short-eared owl
• Short-toed snake-eagle
• Singing bush-lark
• Slender-billed gull
• Small buttonquail
• Snowy-crowned robin-chat
• Soft-plumaged petrel
• Song thrush
• Sooty shearwater
• Sooty tern
• Spanish sparrow
• Speckled pigeon
• Speckle-fronted weaver
• Spectacled warbler
• Spotted crake
• Spotted flycatcher
• Spotted redshank
• Spotted sandgrouse
• Spotted thick-knee
• Spur-winged goose
• Spur-winged lapwing
• Squacco heron
• Standard-winged nightjar
• Stone partridge
• Streaked scrub warbler
• Striated heron
• Striped kingfisher
• Sub-alpine warbler
• Sudan golden sparrow
• Swallow-tailed bee-eater
• Tawny eagle
• Tawny pipit
• Temmnick’s courser
• Temmnick’s lark
• Temmnick’s stint
• Terek sandpiper
• Thekla lark
• Thick-billed lark
• Tree pipit
• Tristram’s warbler
• Trumpeter finch
• Tufted duck
• Upland sandpiper
• Verreaux’s eagle
• Verreaux’s eagle-owl
• Vieillot’s barbet
• Village indigobird
• Village weaver
• Vinaceous dove
• Violet-backed starling
• Vitelline masked weaver
• Wahlberg’s eagle
• Waldrapp
• Water rail
• Wattled lapwing
• Western bonelli’s warbler
• Western orphean warbler
• Western plantain eater
• Western red-billed hornbill
• Western yellow wagtail
• Western-reef heron
• Whimbrel
• Whinchat
• Whiskered tern
• White helmet shrike
• White stork
• White wagtail
• White-backed duck
• White-backed night heron
• White-backed vulture
• White-bellied bustard
• White-bellied kingfisher
• White-billed buffalo weaver
• White-breasted cuckoo-shrike
• White-crested bittern
• White-faced storm petrel
• White-faced whistling duck
• White-fronted black-chat
• White-fronted plover
• White-headed lapwing
• White-headed vulture
• White-rumped seedeater
• White-rumped swift
• White-shouldered black tit
• White-tailed wheatear
• White-throated bee-eater
• Willow warbler
• Wilson’s storm petrel
• Winding cisticola
• Wire-tailed swallow
• Wood sandpiper
• Wood warbler
• Woodchat shrike
• Woodland kingfisher
• Woolly-necked stork
• Yellow penduline tit
• Yellow-billed ox-pecker
• Yellow-billed shrike
• Yellow-billed stork
• Yellow-breasted barbet
• Yellow-crowned bishop
• Yellow-fronted canary
• Yellow-fronted tinkerbird
• Yellow-legged gull
• Yellow-spotted petronia
• Zitting cisticola

Best time for birding in Mauritania

Mauritania is mostly hot and dry with little rain, though the coast is tempered by trade winds. The winter season of November to March is the best time to visit Mauritania, when it’s warm but not scorching, though nights can be chilly so birding in Mauritania can be done all year round