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Ninety seconds on Mogador Island
Mogador Island and its islets are home to nesting Eleonora's falcons, which can be watched only from a boat or the sea wall. Landing is restricted because the islands are a biological reserve that protects the birds.
A biological reserve since 1980 and a Ramsar wetland since 2005, the archipelago off Essaouira holds a colony of Eleonora's falcons that has been monitored fairly regularly since 2010. The state forestry authority's conservation plan aims to understand the bird better, improve its breeding space and increase its population.
The islands are not open to the public, and only a few fishermen declared to the authorities are exempt. The falcons arrive around May, nest through the summer and then migrate to Madagascar for the winter.
Phoenicians worked the islands' marine resources in antiquity, and the Berber king Juba II later ran a factory here that made Tyrian purple dye by processing murex and purpura shells.
Closed to visitors on land, the islands are seen in one of two ways. The free one is the sea rampart in the medina, where the parapet looks straight out across the channel at the islands and the falcons wheeling over them.
The closer one is a boat trip from the harbour, which circles the archipelago at a respectful distance and does not land. From the water, the former prison and the mosque on the main island come into view.
Bring binoculars or a spotting scope whether you watch from the boat or the rampart, because the prison, the mosque and the falcons are all seen from a distance. Take the boat early in your stay, so a rough sea still leaves you another day to try.
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