Morocco 2025

Tingitane

December 5th - 14th 2025

When travelling to find, study or photograph local amphibians, you always pray for bad weather. Bad weather, let's say overcast skies and some type of precipitation (ranging from a slight drizzle to heavy rain) is therefore good weather. The weather gods understandably must have misunderstood my prayers, because during 6 of my 9-day stay in Tingitane, I had clear blue skies and 20°C during the day and beautiful starry nights, 5°C or less with a light but chilly breeze.

So, during the first four days, I divided my time in the day between birdwatching and visiting suitable sites for amphibians and had very uneventful evening walks in those places. A move to the Atlantic coast (Maâmora forest) brought no relief in terms of weather.

Thanks to Jeroen Speybroeck and Wouter Beukema for hints.

Only on day 5, the first rains arrived. I rushed to the nearest salamander spot in Tetouan and began my search. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically, because after a few tumbles on the wet and steep forest floor, I discovered I'd lost my car key. The rest of the day was spent getting a new car and retrieving my stuff out of the first one. However, the salamanders during the evening walk made up for everything.

Day 6 was a continuation of the first four days, but luckily on day 7 the sun remained hidden behind a dense cloud cover. I visited some sites S of Chefchouen.

Over the last two days, hell broke loose. A storm from the Mediterranean battered Morocco. Some monitoring stations in Morocco recorded the highest rainfall ever recorded in a 24-hour period and landslides claimed dozens of victims.