France birding August 2019

Southern France August 2019

A trip to the Pyrenees was something I’d been looking forward to for months and I was just getting into birding I was excited to see what I’d find! I saw a lot more than I’d hoped with around 30 lifers (some more basic than others).

Having completed the 9 hour train journey from London to Perpignan, we stayed the night in the city. Even as we got out of the cab there were a couple of moorish geckos running around street lamps and windows! The next morning we went for a quick walk around town before we got the bus towards the mountains. By a little canal we saw our first lifer of the trip, a white wagtail (although I didn’t realise it was a separate species at the time). Other than that the city was fairly quiet for birds.

The bus left us at Vinca, a town next to a huge reservoir (which I foolishly ignored) in the tet river valley. I had a look in the woods before lunch but finding nothing but a blue tit I felt a bit disheartened and wondered if perhaps my expectations had been too high. 

After a misunderstanding which left us waiting for lift in town for a couple of hours, we ended up at the house we were staying at. Perfectly positioned at the bottom of a valley in the mountains, it looked out over kilometres of unbroken forest but all seemed quiet for birds aside from a kestrel. I sat there feeling a bit annoyed, how could I be here and be disappointed! But it didn’t last long, a short toed eagle over the distant peaks caught my interest, followed by a distant pair of serin in a dead tree, a black redstart in the neighbors garden and best of all a hoopoe which my brother spotted flying over the garden! All this without leaving the garden! The next day we had a two day hike planned so we headed to bed early.

The next morning we started on a beautiful damp sunrise surrounded by swallows. No sooner than we’d stepped onto the road the only bee eater of the trip flew over our heads. The next couple of hours walking were fairly uneventful with golden eagle, green lizard and a flock of crag martins (I think).

When we stopped for lunch I saw my first ever firecrest and a Pyrenean Brook newt. The next seven hours passed without many interesting birds aside from crested tits and despite obvious sign of black woodpeckers there were none to be found.

When we finally got out the woods and above the tree line we were greeted by an odd group birds foraging in the grass in varying shades of brown and yellow. They were remarkably tame and we stopped for a couple of minutes to watch them. I looked them up that night and discovered that they were citril finches. One final surprise that day was a couple of southern chamois below the mountain refuge we were staying at.

The next morning the second I went out the door, there were birds. Alpine accentor on the steps outside the door,crossbill and citril finches showing feet from the refuge ! On the terrifying climb up to the peak we saw ptarmigan, alpine chough and griffon vultures. The climb back down the mountain passed without much event. 

View outside the refuge

Citril finch and crossbill 

The next day we had a couple of golden oriole from the balcony, some great spotted woodpeckers and one lesser spotted woodpecker that landed in the garden. Calling regularly in the woods were what I believe was wryneck although we never found one.

On the way to the next location, we ended up waiting 3 hours for a train but it was a wait well spent with serin,golden oriole, black redstart, cirl bunting and griffon vultures In and around the station.

At the the next train station we saw a couple of golden eagles and when we arrived the garden was stuffed with black redstart. It was bitterly cold and mist hung around all the mountains that evening but by the morning the sun had burned it off.

An early walk in the woods revealed 17 black kite and a couple of goldcrests. The next morning we had a spectacular fly by from a short toed eagle only a few metres away! 

I also saw red backed shrike on the way to the shops. A hike in the valley d’eyne nature reserve had us find bullfinch, firecrest, dipper, red backed shrike, golden eagle, griffon vulture, short toed eagle and alpine marmots.

Short toed eagle, dipper, red backed shrike and firecrest 

 A walk at night saw two juvenile fire salamander. 

There was also a common redstart In the garden.  A couple more bullfinch and spotted flycatcher on the edge of town were nice too. The final day in the mountains had plenty of griffon vultures, crested tits and ravens but not much else. On the return journey back to Perpignan I came across another dipper!

Finally before going home we were to spend two days at the beach but surprisingly I had several more lifers. It was just the same place as I’ve always gone to with the family but only recently did I find out it’s one of the best migration viewpoints in France and gets thousands of honey buzzard, as well as pallid harriers and red footed falcons etc. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know this at the time and migration hadn’t started yet anyway.

When we arrived we decided to walk over to the beach across a rocky plateau. The moment we stepped out of town we were greeted by the scratchy calls of various warblers. The most obvious were Sardinian warblers but I’m fairly sure I saw Dartford and spectacled warblers too!

The next two days we did the same thing of walking across the plateau to the beach. We saw a nice woodchat shrike, a family of wild red legged partridge ,Algerian sand racer lizard (one of my favouritess) and best of all an enormous ,green, glistening ocellated lizard! I also saw a dark, low flying, falcon like bird that I concluded must have been a nightjar flushed by a tourist (there are signs warning about nightjars there so they are present).The beach had a decent tidal lagoon in which I was overjoyed to see my first great egret as well as yellow legged gulls and a pair of Kentish plover. I also saw a couple of terns at the beach but stupidly ignored them!

Kentish plover and great egret just behind the beach!

On the train journey home we passed a couple of good lagoons and saw a flock of greater flamingos, several hundred egrets including my first cattle egrets and 10+ marsh harriers!

In all it was a brilliant trip given that it wasn’t planned to do any birding in particular and my knowledge of birds was fairly limited and therefore I missed the chance to see species like snowfinch, zitting cistocola , basically any waders terns or pipits! However I did learn several new species that’d I’d never heard of before like citril finch! A very enjoyable trip with more than thirty lifers! In fact the only good birds that weren’t lifers were golden oriole, bee eater and golden eagle pretty much! I hope to return this summer! 

Thanks for reading if you actually finished all this👍