Module 057 · Living Data
The Bird Atlas
North Africa sits at the crossroads of three migration superhighways. Every autumn, 450,000 raptors and storks funnel through the Strait of Gibraltar — a 14km gap between continents. Every winter, 2.3 million waders pack the Mauritanian coast. This map tracks the flyways, the preservation areas, and the threatened species that depend on them.
North African wetlands hosting millions of European waterbirds. Peak counts at Ichkeul and Merja Zerga.
26
Preservation areas
3
Major flyways
5
Countries
10
Threatened species sites
Interactive Map
Click any site for details. Toggle flyways to see the three migration superhighways. Filter by habitat type.
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The Three Superhighways
The 14km gap. 300,000 raptors and 150,000 storks funnel through the narrowest crossing between Europe and Africa every autumn.
Waders and shorebirds follow the Atlantic coast from Scandinavia to West Africa. The Banc d'Arguin in Mauritania is the terminus — 2.3 million waders winter there.
Birds crossing via the Sicily Channel and Cap Bon peninsula in Tunisia. The second major Mediterranean bottleneck after Gibraltar.
Preservation Areas by Country
Reading Notes
The 14km Bottleneck
Soaring birds — raptors, storks, pelicans — cannot sustain flight over open water. They depend on thermals, columns of rising warm air that only form over land. When they reach the Mediterranean, they funnel to the narrowest crossing points: the Strait of Gibraltar (14km), the Bosphorus (700m), and Cap Bon to Sicily (140km). Gibraltar alone funnels 450,000 birds through a gap narrower than many cities.
The Last Ibis
The Northern Bald Ibis once ranged from Morocco to Syria to the Alps. By the 21st century, the wild population had collapsed to fewer than 100 pairs — all in Morocco, all at Souss-Massa National Park. A reintroduction programme has boosted numbers to around 700 birds, but Morocco remains the only country where the species survives in the wild. The ibis is Morocco's rarest resident, nesting on Atlantic cliff faces within sight of surfers.
The Banc d'Arguin
Every winter, 2.3 million wading birds pack the shallow waters off Mauritania's coast. The Banc d'Arguin is the terminus of the East Atlantic Flyway — the end of a journey that starts in Siberia, passes through the Wadden Sea, and follows the Atlantic coast of Africa. It is the single most important wintering site for Palearctic waders on the planet. The fishermen who live there, the Imraguen, are one of the few communities in the world who fish cooperatively with dolphins.
"509 bird species have been recorded in Morocco. Thirty-four are globally threatened. The country sits on every major flyway between Europe and Africa. What happens to Moroccan wetlands doesn't stay in Morocco — it echoes from Scandinavia to Senegal."
Sources & Attribution
Important Bird Areas: BirdLife International DataZone (datazone.birdlife.org). Flyway data: AEWA (Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds); Migrant Raptor Monitoring (Gibraltar counts). Northern Bald Ibis: IUCN Red List; BirdLife Morocco (GREPOM). Banc d'Arguin: UNESCO World Heritage nomination document; Wetlands International waterbird census. Strait of Gibraltar passage counts: Fundación Migres, Tarifa. Migration Atlas (migrationatlas.org). MaghrebOrnitho (magornitho.org). Fat Birder Algeria guide. Site coordinates verified via eBird hotspot database and Google Earth. All data editorial estimates unless otherwise sourced.
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