Walking above Imlil yesterday on the way towards Tizi Mzig, we came across a family of marmots high on the cliffside. They must be very happy that spring is coming to the atlas mountains now!

We have yet to identify their species. They are much smaller than alpine marmots, and more brown than gray. Their call is also different, rather than the sharp “peep” warning call of the alpine marmot, these moroccan ones seem to have a call of several shrill “pips” in quick succession. This is what initially drew our attention to them.

The locals call them “abgour”, which is the general name for ground squirrels. It will take some more study and a decent pair of binoculars to work out whether they are actually ground squirrels, or some species of moroccan marmot.

Do leave a comment if you have a positive id of them or a better photo, this was the limit of our camera’s zoom!

Marc

EDIT:

Looks like they may indeed have been Barbary Ground Squirrels. Next time if we have binoculars we can confirm!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_ground_squirrel

http://www.pbase.com/carlogalliani/image/152173978