Banc d'Arguin National Park

Wetlands & DeltasDakhlet Nouadhibou,Mauritania

Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic in Mauritania, 12,000 square kilometres of tidal flats holding two million wintering waders and fishermen still working under sail.

September·Quiet month

May–Sep

The great wader flocks have gone north; instead the islands hold West Africa's largest breeding seabird colonies, terns and pelicans with chicks by June. The coast stays mild, but the interior bakes, the year's scant rain falls July–September, and most overland tours pause.

Year-round Flamingos, great white pelicans and the cold-upwelling fish nursery hold the banks all year, and the Imraguen still work these waters under sail — the flats and dune islands never empty of birds.

Banc d'Arguin National Park is the stretch of the Mauritanian coast where the Sahara meets the Atlantic, 12,000 square kilometres of tidal flats, sandbanks and dunes between Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, holding some two million wintering waders, the largest concentration of Palearctic shorebirds anywhere on Earth, and a people who still fish it under sail and with the help of wild dolphins. The banks are shallow for tens of kilometres offshore, warmed by the sun and fed by the cold upwelling of the current, so the mudflats are among the richest in the world, and from November to March they hold flocks of Arctic and Siberian waders moving between Europe and West Africa, over two-thirds of the world's bar-tailed godwits among them, with flamingos, pelicans, spoonbills and the largest breeding colonies of seabirds in West Africa on the islands; twice a day the tide redraws the bank, uncovering pale sand islands and braided channels that vanish again by the next high water, best taken in whole from a dune crest at Cap Tafarit. The Imraguen, the fishing people of the coast, work the banks in wooden lanches under lateen sail, the only motorless boats allowed in the park, and often the only way into its inner channels. From late October into January the mullet run down the coast, and the Imraguen wade out with their nets and slap the water with sticks; Atlantic humpback dolphins answer by driving the shoals toward the shore, a partnership recorded here for centuries. When the mullet are landed the women take over, salting and sun-drying the roe into bottarga, poutargue in the French of the coast, a pressed delicacy sold far beyond Mauritania. Low mounds of shells along the shore mark centuries of fishing camps processing their catch in the same spots used today, and the park's villages have no road, so it is visited by four-wheel drive from the coastal highway with a guide and a permit. Banc d'Arguin is the desert's edge that the birds of the Arctic depend on, and the dolphins fish it with the people.

Worth knowing

Good to know

November to March is peak — up to two million wintering waders crowd the flats then, and the fierce coastal heat is at its most bearable for being out on open water.
You cannot enter alone — access is tightly controlled, so arrange a permit and a local guide in advance through the village of Iwik rather than turning up unannounced.
Bring binoculars and a long lens — the spectacle plays out across wide-open water and mudflats, and the densest flocks are often hundreds of metres offshore, best read at a distance.

Things to do

1
Sail with Imraguen fishermen
Traditional lanches still work the banks — often the only way into the park's inner channels.
2
Look for shell middens of ancient fishing camps
Low mounds of shells along the coast mark centuries of Imraguen and earlier fishing communities processing their catch in the same spots still used today.
3
Spot wintering shorebirds by the thousand
Between November and March the flats hold vast flocks of migratory waders and flamingos moving between Europe and West Africa — the single largest concentration of Palearctic shorebirds anywhere.
4
Walk the tidal flats out toward Tidra
Twice a day the tide redraws the bank, uncovering pale sand islands and braided channels that vanish again by the next high water — best taken in whole from a dune crest at Cap Tafarit. At low tide, around Tidra Island, it leaves kilometres of firm sand and shallow channels you can walk out onto with a guide. This is where the wading birds feed: from the ground you see the flocks working the same flats that satellite pictures turn into turquoise ribbons.