As I outlined in the last post, bad weather in the Alps caused us to retreat southwards. We left the rain behind once we were south of the congested town of Gap and then continued on our long drive to St Martin de Crau near Arles, where we booked into a nice hotel for three nights. We were heading for the huge wetland of the Camargue, the delta of the mighty River Rhône, but I was particularly interested in birding the stony plain known as La Crau. Once this was the delta of the River Durance until the river changed course and flowed north to meet the Rhône at what is now Avignon, the abundant stones on the plain were washed down from the Alps by the river in ancient times.
I visited the Camargue for several days in 1980 but the time spent on La Crau was rather short so I wished to explore the area again. In particular I wanted to see Little Bustard, a bird I have only seen on the 1980 trip, the famous Christchurch bird on New Years Day 1987 and once in Morocco in 1990. After 25 years I thought it was time I saw some more.
We had enough time on our first evening to visit the reserve at the northern end of the plain near Etang des Aulines.
An adjacent field held this White Stork ….
…. and on the reserve were several very vocal Stone Curlew, but there was no sign of our main targets, Little Bustard and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse.
Checking the map showed that there were a number of tracks at the south end of the plain but this was adjacent to the industrial area of Fos-sur-Mer and the nearby port, but they looked promising so we made the effort to arrive there soon after dawn. There was a military airfield nearby and when the fighter jets took off, the sound was deafening but at least all was quiet for the first couple of hours.
In spite of these drawbacks we had a great mornings birding with wonderful views of up to 50 Bee-eaters
…. several Hoopoe ….
…. but the highlight of the morning undoubtedly was getting reasonable views of this male Little Bustard displaying ….
…. and later we saw several pairs in flight.
In the late morning we headed north to a range known as Les Alpilles and the hill-top town of Les Baux de Provence. The aluminium ore bauxite was discovered in these hills and was named after Les Baux. For the first time on our trip we saw the sun!
Once a defensive fortress, Les Baux is now wholly given over to the tourist trade.
Black Redstarts were common and this singing male gave great views.
It was a bit of a climb to the top of Les Baux, we stopped at the top for a cuppa before returning to the hotel for a siesta, as we had started so early. When we went out again about 1615 I realised I hadn’t got my camera – I must have left it in the cafe. We rushed back to Les Baux hoping we would get there before closing time. We arrived at the cafe at 1650, but it was too late, they were already closed.
On the 6th we spent the morning in the Camargue. First we visited some freshwater marshes near Mas d’Agon, before driving down the east side of the massive Etang de Vaccares. The big lake itself was almost devoid of birds but we saw lots in the adjacent marshes, but of course I only had my pocket camera.
Eventually we arrived at the southern end near Le Paradis. Here were a number of saline lagoons with Stilts, Avocets, Kentish Plover and Little Stints.
We initially drove and then walked along the track called Digue à la Mer as far as the lighthouse, Phare de la Gacholle. We saw many interesting gulls, terns and waders plus of course many of the Greater Flamingos for which the Camargue is famous.
Without my camera I can’t post any photos of the birds we saw, which is a shame as it was the most photogenic part of the trip as far as birds are concerned. However I’ve included photos of two species that I have taken elsewhere, both notable because they were not found in the Camargue on my last visit 35 years ago and are relatively recent colonists. Firstly Great White Egret (photo taken in Ethiopia in 2011) ….
…. and Glossy Ibis (photo of a vagrant individual taken near Wareham, Dorset in 2012).
By early afternoon we had to cut short our visit to this outstanding area and drive back to Les Baux in the hope of rescuing the camera. To my relief the people at the café still had it and to my amusement they had been using it to take silly photos of themselves!
After Les Baux we spent a while at the nearby lookout of La Caume. This is said to be a stake out for the scarce Bonelli’s Eagle but we had no luck, although we did see a distant Egyptian Vulture.
We continued on to the town of Arles which is situated on the banks of the mighty Rhône.
After failing to find Bonelli’s Eagle this afternoon you can imagine my surprise when an immature Bonelli’s flew over this square in the evening. I got a reasonable view, but of course didn’t have time to get a photo. I would imagine it had been hunting over the Camargue and was returning to Les Alpilles, a short distance to the north, to roost.
We spent the first couple of hours of the 7th back in the Etange de Aulnes area of La Crau. To our delight a flock of 12 Pin-tailed Sandgrouse flew over, nine of which are in this photo, but they flew directly into the sun and all I saw was a silhouette (however the ‘pin tail’ is just visible on some of the birds).
Before we left the south of France we thought it would be a good idea to visit some of the resorts that have made this area so famous, and none is more famous than St Tropez. However as we entered the nearby town of St Maxime we hit a huge traffic jam. Rather than waste an hour trying to get to St Tropez on the far side of the bay, we called into the beach at St Maxime for lunch, which was just like any other beach resort in the Med.
The next stop was at Monte Carlo in Monaco. The only reason for calling in here was to add it to my country list (number 107). All we saw was loads of expensive apartment blocks and hotels plus masses of traffic. A sea mist had rolled in making it all look rather gloomy and we were quite glad to move on.
The rest of that day’s drive was quite demanding. We followed the A8 motorway east into Italy. It is an amazing piece of engineering; tunnel after tunnel joined by viaduct after viaduct with quite a lot of sharp bends. A challenging drive in itself, but made worse by big lorries taking up the narrow inside lane and a succession of BMW and Audi drivers following ridiculously close behind me, unhappy that I was driving at a mere 130 kph. Note that the moment we drove into Italy the houses all had the familiar red-tiled roofs unlike those in France. From here we headed north towards Piedmont and the Italian Alps (the subject of the next post).
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