The season started well on the 28th March with our first Birding Languedoc outing, and we have several more booked up for this spring.
We started the morning at Les Coussoules, a strip of land with a lagoon behind and the sea in front, where the land is flat and sandy, with sparse vegetation and scrubby trees like Tamarisk here and there. It had been wet so these pools will be dry in the summer; however there are some filtration ponds surrounded by reeds so there are water birds to be found here, particularly in the spring. We were too early sadly for Reed Warblers (they get the Great Reed Warbler here too). No Bluethroats to be seen either, a shame as they were one of the target species and I still haven't seen one properly!
There's a Chiffchaff in the willow tree below; a Willow Warbler was heard too, plus several other birds associated with water, such as Water Rail and Cetti’s Warbler.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
The star of the show down here though was this magnificent Osprey! I have only seen one once before, flying over our car whilst crossing a dam over the Rhone river, with a great big fish in its talons! However that was nearly 20 years ago, so I was more than happy to see this one.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Another lovely surprise was this Common Redstart. The Black Redstarts are common all over France but it's many years since we saw one of these.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Whilst around the filtration ponds we saw our first Swallows of the year, and not just them, but also House Martins, and the first Swifts! Then Sand Martins flew over too, and later in the day, Crag Martins!
Karline, our professional guide, is also a lover of reptiles and seems to easily spot lizards with her specially trained eye! I'd never even heard of this one, it's a Mediterranean species called Edwards Sand Racer (Psammodromus edwarsianus).
Photo credit: Keith Allen
By the way Keith has some new photography kit so I'm leaving the bird shooting mostly to him now, as he's using a 600mm Tamron lens with a teleconverter! He is much more steady than me and I can't cope with the weight of that kind of kit, so I'm perfectly happy with this arrangement. 😀
We then moved on to the Leucate headland, which is an area of garrigue up on some cliffs. It wasn't in our itinerary, however a rare bird had been spotted here in the week leading up to our trip, the Isabelline Wheatear. Sadly not even a twitcher in sight, let alone the bird in question. But I was in my element as I love the spring wildflowers in the garrigue, and loved spotting these gorgeous absolutely tiny narcissus! They are Narcissus dubius, a Mediterranean species that likes rocky chalky soil.
Asphodels were out in bloom too, they are really beautiful flowers.
There are many species of broom which flower throughout the spring, here's one of the early ones, although I don't know which one.
This is looking towards the Semaphore station, but what's that orange thing next to it?
Aha! It's a paraglider and there were several people enjoying the light breezy conditions over the cliffs.
What I didn't manage to capture was the paraglider as well as the group of migrating cormorants which flew towards us along the edge of the coast. Karline of course, identified them when they were just a speck in the distance! I could barely even see them at that distance! 😀
After eating our picnic lunch at La Franqui which is across the water from Les Coussoules, where we saw various other water birds in the lagoon, we moved on to the La Palme salt pans, still on the edge of the same lagoon, Etang de La Palme. Now this is a place that is often full of waders, although mostly they are pretty distant and quite hard to ID, due to their tiny size!
The following photo (taken with Keith's kit) has Dunlins and a couple of Little Stint in the foreground (shorter beaks and smaller). I can actually see better in K's photos than I could with a spotting scope!
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Karline spotted a rarer bird in amongst the little birds, a Temmincks Stint! I couldn't tell the difference, and still can't, but most of them have yellowish legs, though this one seems to have quite black ones. The two birds on the left are Kentish Plovers.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
I love this photo! This was quite a magnicient sight to see, a big group of Flamingos in flight. They are such a weird shape, all stretched out like that!💕
Photo credit: Keith Allen
The following is a list of the birds that Keith and I saw and heard (H), although the list on the BL website write up of the day shows 62 species! Some of those I didn't even see.
Les Coussoules
Green Sandpiper
Buzzard
Common Redstart
Chiffchaff
Zitting Cisticola (H)
Cetti's Warbler (H)
Sardinian Warbler (H)
Coots
Great Tit
Willow Warbler (H)
Black Kites
Water Rail (H)
Osprey
Swallows
House Martins
Cormorants
Swifts
Sand Martins
Marsh Harrier
Leucate cliffs
Sardinian Warbler
Crag Martins
Cormorants (again), migrating
Lagoon at La Franqui
Flamingos
Oystercatchers
Kentish Plovers
Slender Billed Gull
Herring Gulls
La Palme salt pans
Black-winged Stilt
Avocets
Kentish Plovers (again)
Little-ringed Plover
Shelducks
Little Stints
Temmincks Stint
Dunlins
Meadow Pipit
Flamingos (again)
This is the link to the Birding Languedoc write up with photos and bird list.
********
Since my last post we have had snow one morning (!!!) and also a few lovely days where we got out and worked in the garden. I hadn't realised quite how weedy my new Nectar Bar bed had got, so I am only about a third of the way through attacking that. It's weird because my herb bed has hardly any weeds; it seems the only things that want to germinate in that clay soil are garlic chives (good!). I think I'll try sowing some coriander and dill seeds in this front bed as the soil is much lighter and it seems everything germinates!
P.S. I actually wrote all this more than a week ago, but I've been so busy this last week that I just haven't got round to posting it! Some nice weather again so I've been out pottering in the garden and getting some natural Vit D. 😀
Yes I am going back a bit! I never wrote about vulture day in 2020 as it was soooo cold that morning I didn't even take any photos - this time I was better prepared with a warmer jacket and gloves but luckily it was much warmer anyway, so I was able to take photos galore! There is a vulture watching spot at the base of the mini mountain of Bugarach, the highest peak in the Corbières at 1,230m. In the past the LPO (French equivalent of RSPB) used to feed the vultures more often and you could find out when they were planning to do it, so could go along, but now for some reason or other they only do this once a year on International Vulture Day. Nonetheless, there are often vultures hanging around in this area, and so you can see them at other times. There are information boards telling you about all the different species of vulture that you may be lucky to see, although by far the most common is the Griffon Vulture. I have seen two other species of vulture elsewhere in France and in Spain, but only the Griffon on these days at Bugarach. It's not disappointing though as any vulture is worth watching, in my opinion!. The only sad thing about this place is that the feeding platform is way across a valley so is rather distant for photos - a good thing they are big birds!
First of all, when we arrived we were lucky to see these Chamois perched up on the ridge - we've never seen them before so that was a real bonus. I think for this and the vulture shots, you would be better to click on the photos and view them full size.
It seems that maybe a few vultures who are sitting around or flying around notice what is going on (i.e. a pickup truck with a load of offal) and in no time at all, others start appearing and swoop around the skies until the time when the meat is put down, then whoosh! Seeing them come into land and then start squabbling over the meat is quite a sight, all the while there are crows trying to get in there to get a morsel or two as well!
I think most of the food had gone by this time as they are looking up, maybe hoping for seconds? 😀
Griffons are large vultures, with a wingspan of 2.3–2.8 m (7.5–9.2 ft) (according to Wikipedia). And here is what they really look like in this beautiful photograph by Pierre Dalous taken from the Wikipedia page for Griffon Vultures. How I wish I could get a shot like this!
Once the birds had finished their meal they took to the skies and we continued to watch them for a while, as it is rare to see so many in the skies all at once, except for at feeding time!
Philippa (on the right) who is the owner/leader of Birding Languedoc and some of our group watching the vultures.
The day was not over as we went to a pretty picnic lake on the outskirts of the village of Bugarach to eat our picnic lunch.
Not my best dragonfly shot and I don't want to spend ages trying to ID it from just one image, so let's just say it's a Darter of some sort, and probably female.
This however is definitely my best shot of a Southern White Admiral (Limenitis reducta)! By this time we had returned to the village of Bugarach and gone for a walk into the fields up above it.
A Grayling of some sort - as there are many species of Grayling on the European mainland I can't ID it from this photo.
A view of the Pic de Bugarach - now from where we live it looks like a nicely mounded peak, but from certain angles it has a fairly jagged flattish top.
This is the first Jersey Tiger Moth (Euplagia quadripunctaria) that I have seen down here - I saw lots of them in Brittany. The small butterfly behind is a Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus).
Another daytime flying moth, this time it's one of the Burnet moths, possibly a Five-Spot but the markings are all merged together, so I'm not sure.
We were bird watching as well of course, but apart from a few Wheatears perching on fence posts and telegraph wires, I can't remember what else we saw! Below Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe).
Another view of the Pic de Bugarach walking back towards the village.
We then moved on to the Gorge de Galamus to see if there were any migratory birds passing through. We didn't see any, but we were lucky enough to see both a Blue Rock Thrush and a Common Rock Thrush, both in the same place! They were very distant so no photos, but a great find all the same.
I've taken photos of this gorge and the Hermitage of St Antoine before, but the last time I had sun shining through the middle of the shot. This image shows the hermitage much better, and in the next photo which is taken from the main car park, if you view it full size you will see the hermitage in the middle of the image. In this image, you can just see the steps leading up to the chapel built into the cave behind the left and middle roofs.
I think I've just about finished redecorating for this winter and now I'm going to get out and start tidying the flower and herb beds! I've been out for precisely one walk this year on a non windy, sunny day, so I'm rather itchy to get out more. I have been exercising once a week in the little gym at my physios, which I think is starting to help a teeny bit. I saw a pain doctor last week and he wants me to start doing balneotherapie (amongst a large list of other things which I doubt they do at my physios, like having mud treatment!). However, they do have a mini pool for that kind of exercise at the physios, but whether they can fit me in for 3 sessions a week I rather doubt it, as they are run off their feet and seem to be seeing multiple patients at the same time. Whatever, in the summer at least I can do those exercises at home. Yes, I still have pain, both from the mesh from the hernia repair and from an on and off over the years tendonitis problem in my thigh, which the pain doctor declared was sciatica; I don't agree but he wasn't the kind of person who listens and liked to talk and shout a lot.
This wasn't meant to be a health update, just to show some piccies of my furniture and guest room now that they are finished! So let's get on with it....
The Before of the pine chest of drawers in the guest room:
After:
I have to say I'm rather chuffed with it - the headboard and then this chest were the first pieces of furniture that I have painted with chalk paint - up to now I've just been practicing on things like picture frames, plant pots and lamp shades. I finished the painted chest in clear wax, then put dark wax in the few nooks and crannies to give an aged look. It doesn't show up so well in my phone photos indoors, but I'm sure you get the picture. 😀
