Birds and bugs around the Gulf of Morbihan

Make yourself comfy and sit down with a nice cup of tea as this is a long post. This dates back nearly two weeks, but when you come back from a day out with about 250 photo, it takes a while to sort them out and decide which ones to post! After visiting this bird rich area back in April (post here), here's my report from a revisit to the same places in mid May. Whilst there were fewer species and birds of interest viewable from the hides at the reserves, there were plenty of birds around, not to mention this time there were bugs and butterflies galore, so plenty to keep me occupied!

The first bird that needs a mention, although I don't have a photo, is one I've wanted to see more than anything for many years. I have been to many places in my 'where to watch birds' books from the Alps to the Pyrenees, and never so much as a glimpse of this elusive bird. But within five minutes of getting out of the car, what did we see but a Black Woodpecker! To get to one of the hides at the Marais de Duer, you have to walk through a small area of mixed woodland, and there's even a sign saying Black Woodpeckers here. Last time we were there, I thought "yeah, right" and contented myself with seeing Crested Tits instead. This time though we hit the jackpot! It was flitting from tree trunk to tree trunk and was hard enough to watch through binocs, but it's a big bird and easy enough to see well with the naked eye. Now Bluethroats have been bumped up to my No. 1 Want to See Bird and this area is supposed to be rife with them.... so maybe next time?

Along the open bit of path/cycleway to the hide we saw a couple of things of interest.

Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlus).

There was one important thing that I learned on this day - don't dismiss every mottled looking brown/orange butterfly that flits by as yet another common old Speckled Wood. Sometimes they are something completely different! On the other hand, don't get too excited either, as sometimes they ARE Speckled Woods, only the one which had lost both its hind wings had me quite excited for a moment thinking it was something completely different...... :-)

Another lifer! A Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia).
It would have been nice to see the underwings which are prettier,
but it only wanted to pose like this.

The first hide had little of interest so we then backtracked, visited the other hide (Brent Geese, Black-winged Stilts, Reed Warblers) and decided to follow a path we hadn't walked along the previous time. This turned out to be a coastal path which we walked along for about half an hour before turning back. There was lots of interest along here, including seeing and hearing Whitethroats (no photos!) and a Grizzled Skipper (ummm no photo either!).

The coastal footpath after vising the hides at the Marais de Duer reserve.

We rounded a corner and I walked down onto the beach,
only to scare off two Shelducks and two..... yes they are Black Swans!

That was a nice surprise - also they are not totally black.
These Swans hail from Australia but have been introduced to Europe as ornamental birds,
and some have escaped and live happily as wild birds.

Mega zoomed in but at least we can ID them. Top two pictures are Black-tailed Godwits which are migratory birds and could well be breeding here in southern Brittany. The birds in the bottom two pics are Whimbrels which should have reached their breeding grounds by now I'd have thought. Maybe these ones are only going to Scotland and not the Arctic!

Top and Middle: Black-tailed Godwits (Limosa limosa)
Bottom: Whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus)
and in the centre a Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna).

In the top pic you can see how far away the shoreline is and that's where the waders were!
The rest are me doing what I love best - photographing bugs!

Here's what was enjoying this umbellifer plant:
Top left: a Honey Bee
Top right: a Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria)
Bottom two pics: Rose Chafers (Cetonia aurata)

A Wood White butterfly (Leptidea sinapis), a species I've only seen once before
down in SW France in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

On the way back from our walk we walked alongside a slow moving stream which had been quiet earlier, but with the sun and warmth the damselflies had woken up. There were dozens of Large Red Damselfies, many of them mating, many on the footpath in front of us so we had to watch our step. In fact when I stopped to have a closer look at the stream they were landing on me!

I had to ask for help with ID for this one but it's not surprising I couldn't find it. It's a different form of the female Large Red Damselfly, which is often much redder as seen in the pic below this one.

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula f. melanotum).

This is a more red colour variant of the female,
which was the colour we were seeing on the mating pairs all around us.

Whilst watching damselfly activity I spotted something strange looking in the vegetation and was very excited to find my first dragonfly exuviae - the shed exoskeleton of the nymph. I believe this is from a Broad Bodied Chaser, as there were quite a number of them in the small pond across the road.

Dragonfly exuviae - probably from Broad Bodied Chaser.

A zoomed in pic of a Broad Bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa).
This was a male but you can't see its blue abdomen here!

We then went to revisit the Reserve at the Marais de Sene and have a late picnic lunch there. This is a paying place but I was a bit disappointed this 2nd visit. The most exciting thing here were Avocet chicks and whilst I shouldn't poo-poo dozens of Avocets and a good handful of Black-winged Stilts, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing! Frustratingly, the only hide where there were some good views of close up chicks was full of school children on a field trip, so although I tried to take photos through the window over the tops of the kids' heads, it proved impossible as the kids just kept jumping around!

Distant Avocet chick, taken through grubby plastic window of hide.

One hide has a boardwalk which crosses a lagoon and is the only place where you can actually view a lagoon from the open, rather than from inside a hide.

Black-winged Stilts (Himantopus himantopus), male at the back, female in front.

More Black-winged Stilts (Himantopus himantopus).

A lizard seen by the side of the boardwalk. This boardwalk was made from a plastic type of
material resembling planks and was really easy to walk on -
unlike the wobbly wooden planks throughout the rest of the reserve!

I don't know who is responsible for this damage but there were a lot of completely defoliated
sloe bushes and gorse bushes covered in these webs containing caterpillars.

After changing into my trainers from my hiking boots as my feet felt like they were going to explode from heat, we went back to the salines at Lasné, but it was very windy and there were too many people about for any real birding. So we decided as it 'seemed' like low tide to walk over the causeway to Île Tascon. This little island is only accessible at low tide and there are very few people who live here full time; most of the houses now being holiday homes. There is still a farm and most of the land is grazing for cattle.

We passed a few cottages all shuttered up like this with long grass!
Would be rather nice as a peaceful weekend getaway.

Looking back towards the mainland just after we got here;
I'm glad I took this photo as it shows me where the tide was.

We didn't really stop here for long as we didn't walk that far as there was little to really see, maybe about half an hour total. On the return walk I looked at the level of the sea and asked my OH if the water had been up to the edge of the concrete roadway when we walked across? He didn't think so.... ooops the tide was turning! On the causeway we stopped and watched for a little while and it really brings home to you just how fast the tide can come in. I wonder how many people have been stranded there over the years? A noticeboard with tide times by the causeway would have been a good idea for all those visitors and tourists wandering over.

Looking towards the mainland.

Looking back towards the island.

It didn't take long to come across the road!

This guy had to hop across the water over the rocks.
I hope the guys in the distance planned on staying on the island!

In the 10 minutes or so that we were in the car park before leaving, the water was well up and over the causeway, but a truck drove through it OK. I've no idea how high the water comes during an average tide.

The next time we visit we'll try to explore some different places on the east side the gulf. I think that the paying nature reserve at Sene is best visited during the spring or autumn migration for birds only, as it holds little of interest in the way of butterflies, bees etc as there wasn't much in the way of wildflowers. But all in all a fabulous day out!

Birding around the Gulf of Morbihan

We miss going birding as there are few places near where we live, so when I discovered that the area around the Gulf of Morbihan on the south coast has some nature reserves and marshy places which are good for birding, my mind was made up. It's migratory season right now and all we needed was for the weather forecast to look good. I picked a day, packed a picnic and off we set! We visited three sites, all on the east side of the gulf - the Marais de Duer, not far from Sarzeau, the Salines de Lasné near Saint Armel, and finally the Réserve Naturelle des Marais de Séné. These places are all about 1 hour 50 mins from home which is OK for a full day out, but oh how I wish we had the same kind of sites on the north coast!

Credit: Wikipedia Commons

The first place we visited was the Marais de Duer. Here there are two hides and various pathways leading to them. From where we parked we walked through a mini pine forest and there was a board showing that Black Woodpeckers inhabit this area. This is my most want to see bird, that I have looked for from the Alps to the Pyrenees, in vain! Of course we didn't see one, but almost as good, we saw three Crested Tits - my favourite bird. They were common garden birds visiting our feeders when we lived the other side of France, and we did see a few when we first moved to Chateau Moorhen, but not a one in the last eight years, sadly!

The first hide was a high one with two flights of steps up with a great view over the lagoons. I lugged my dslr around with me just to take landscape shots (and then cursed it for the rest of the day as most of where we visited was flat and I didn't dare leave it in the car). My SX50 superzoom was of course the camera needed to get the bird shots as even a 300mm lens on the dslr is pointless with the birds often being far away.

Just a note - we were very surprised in this first hide to find that all the windows were padlocked shut and we had to shoot through the plastic, which was a nuisance. We then found the same at every single hide, including the ones at the Nature Reserve at Séné. Very annoying, and it also made them rather hot and stuffy instead of nice places to have a good sit down and spend time in. :-(

View from the tall hide at the Marais de Duer taken with my dslr.
On the island are the Spoonbills seen in the picture below.

Not a good shot obviously having seen the distance,
but it was really cool to see these Spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia).

We saw tons of Avocets (Recurvirostra avosetta) both here and later on in the day, so here are a selection of photos of them! I can't remember when I last saw any, although it must have been around the Med.

In the collage below, top left the bird is tending an egg in the nest which is just a scrape in the ground on the island.

Next stop was the Salines de Lasné. A saline is a an area where salt is made in salt pans, but we couldn't see any sign of this. All the salines looked drained and full of mud, the same for the area given over to oyster farming! There is an island very close to the salines which can be reached at low tide and the inhabitants can drive over during this time.

View out to the sea within the Gulf. The tide was coming in.

In terms of water birds there were very few seen here, but the walk along the 'digue' (sea wall) was very interesting for other species. We saw Wheatears, Linnets and for me a very exciting sighting of a Green Hairstreak butterfly (Callophrys rubi). I've only ever seen them 18 years ago in south west France. I wasn't into butterflies back then but who can forget a tiny emerald green butterfly? Unfortunately my photos were rubbish!!

We also saw (and heard!) Zitting Cisticolas and saw a Cattle Egret in a back garden! My photos of the Egret were not very good as it was very distant, but were good enough for a definite ID.

Took a while to ID this pair, but they are Linnets (Carduelis cannabina).
The male however is not in breeding plumage which is the familiar pink chest
and pink top of head. We did see a male with those colours along this walk.
The female at the bottom is collecting nesting material.

This is a male Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe).
We saw quite a few of them (or the same bird many times!)
I think they are really handsome birds.

We then moved on to the Nature Reserve at Séné. Here there is a visitor centre, picnic tables, toilets and a rooftop observation centre. If you want to visit their hides you have to pay though, but at €5 a head that was pretty reasonable I thought. By this time it was warming up quite a lot as this area is flat and inland a little bit from the main gulf (near a tidal river) and is sheltered from any cooling breezes from the sea.

My OH. Why are those viewing holes always at the wrong height?!
At least this was one place where you can take photos without
annoying plastic windows in front of you!

There were boardwalks leading to the hides (5 in total) and the blackthorn
was in blossom, butterflies were about and it was very pleasant
strolling through these sheltered areas.

Redshank (Tringa totanus)

The next two collaged photos show the two lifers that we saw that day. (A lifer is a bird (or other species) that you see for the first time).

Spotted Redshanks (Tringa erythropus).

Black-tailed Godwits (Limosa limosa).

The most common duck was the Shelduck which was at all the sites we visited. In fact there were very few ducks at all, and we only saw a few Mallards which made a nice change!

Common Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna), a very handsome duck.

Common Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) - the one on the left is a female.

Lastly, here is a test, dear readers. Who knows what this species is? ;-)

No prizes for guessing, though. Sorry. :-)

All in all, a fabulous day out seeing loads of migratory species. We plan to go back next month. I also found a website of the Friends of this nature reserve with a photo list of all species seen at the reserve, including butterflies, insects, spiders and Odonata (dragon and damselflies). They have such an amazing amount of butterfly species spotted here, including various Fritillaries and something I'd never even heard of which is a Mediterranean species, so I'm planning to go back in September too (once the kids are back at school and tourists gone) for the butterfies and Odonata! :-)

Species seen (not including very common birds):

1.  Shelducks
2.  Black Winged Stilts
3.  Avocets
4.  Spoonbills
5.  Little Egrets
6.  Crested Tits
7.  Blackcap
8.  Chiffchaff
9.  Zitting Cisticolas
10. Linnets
11. Wheatears
12. Cattle Egret 
13. Skylark
14. Black-tailed Godwit
15. Spotted Redshank
16. Redshank
17. Whitethroat (my OH saw it, I didn't)
18. Ringed Plover (possible, it was very distant)

Also heard many Cetti's Warblers.

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French Friday - the forest of Paimpont

About three weeks ago when the sun was blazing during a particularly hot spell, the thought of a day out in a forest with lakes seemed like a good idea.

Also known as Brocéliande forest, it is a land of legends and Arthurian romance. The only previous time we had visited was when we first moved here in 2004 and were surprised to learn that King Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin et al were legends here too, as we had grown up with the tales since childhood and assumed they were British ones! But the Bretons are a Celtic race who came over to Bretagne (Britain) in the 6th century AD so maybe brought their legends with them.

We'd decided a picnic was in order, something we'd not done in years. (I don't count those 'stolen' sandwiches from hotel breakfasts as a real picnic. A real picnic contains real picnic food that you lovingly prepped at home!). First stop was the lake called 'Etang de Pas du Houx' - not a huge lot to see here other than one path alongside open to the public and a view of a couple of big houses. Most of the land beside the lake is private and this must be a great place to live, other than the hordes of visitors gawking and taking photos of your house!

French Wikipedia calls this a chateau - I beg to differ.
It's just a posh house!

We then stopped in the village of Paimpont which is small and touristy with a large and photogenic Abbey situated beside a lake. There is a tourist office where we picked up a map marking all the touristy and Arthurian legend places to visit. We only went to a few of these places and you could do with a couple of days here to do the area justice.

The Abbey at Paimpont.

Along by the lake was a pleasant walkway with mown paths amongst longer grass and I was really pleased to see signs saying that they had cut down on mowing all the grass to help the butterflies! Many of the butterflies were 'browns' all of whose larvae feed of various grasses. Of course there were ducks and dragonflies and all things related to water around too. We ate our lunch on a bench in the shade of oak trees.

Mrs Mallard with her babies.

Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), male.

I think this is a not quite mature male Black Tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum).

After lunch we set off to the Val sans Retour as we could see from our map that there was a 4km round trip walk following a stream with a couple of lakes, which sounded pleasant and shady.

All about the Val sans Retour.

L'Arbre d'Or (the Golden Tree) erected in 1991 as a souvenir to remember
a fire that destroyed nearly 500 acres of forest in September 1990.

The walk beside the barely trickling stream.

The romantic in me would like to think that the legends of damsels and their lovers (faithful or otherwise) still continues with the amount of damselflies and here, demoiselles, of which there were surprisingly many in such a shady area.

Male Beautiful Demoiselles (Calopteryx virgo). Awaiting females and the one bottom right
is spreading his wings in an attempt to attract a female.

And here she is, a female Beautiful Demoiselle.

One guy got lucky and here they are getting into position.
It's a tricky manoeuvre.

Finally they made it into the 'copulation wheel'.

There were two little lakes like this, full of damselflies and dragonflies.
I could have spent hours here!

Rather than retrace our steps we continued on to do the loop
and returned via a long and very hot sunny path!

Eventually it opened up into vistas and we realised that we were quite high up here.

After chilling out for a while we decided to stop in and see what the Tomb of the Giants
was about on our way back to Paimpont.

Not a lot! A Bronze age burial chamber but we'd walked nearly 2 kms there and back and
were a bit hot and disgruntled as we'd expected something a bit more exciting....

However I didn't mind too much as I finally managed to capture a Small Skipper. There hadn't been too many butterflies about and a real lack of wild flowers, but there were quite a few of these little butterflies in amongst the long grass.

Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris).

Hot, tired and dusty and impatiently awaiting my ice cream.
I've eaten more ice cream this last month than in probably the three previous years!

All in all a very enjoyable day out and only about an hour from home!