Back in the UK now - I had planned on updating this earlier, but holidays can get busy!
Disappointing, no other birds of note at all, even on our second La Brenne visit. Next time I plan to go alone, so as not to annoy non-birdy friends with constant requests to look for birds!
Found a lobster moth larvae on a tree in our garden in Creuse, what a strange looking insect. And our last night in France before our ferry home produced some midwife toad tadpoles in a dune pond by "Havre de la Vanilee" in Normandy.
I spent some of the 5 hour ferry home stood outside with my bins, and saw plenty of gannets, lesser-black backed gulls and a few groups of Manx shearwater.
-- Edited by Oliver Morris on Saturday 31st of August 2024 01:04:25 PM
Nothing of note on a visit to Loups de Chabrières animal park on Friday.
DAY 5
A very hot day wallking around a few ponds at Parc naturel régional de la Brenne! Plenty of Pelophylax spp. frogs, wall lizards, and a western green lizard, as well as a couple of coypu. Only visited one hide, so didn't see an awful lot of birds; quite a few grey heron, little egret and great white egret, but somehow missed any continental species. Did see a short-toed snake eagle an a bluethroat (opinions on both images welcomed!!) though.
Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit more birding on our second visit Iin a couple of days. Tomorrow we are visiting the Zooparc de Beauval, so I don't expect to be able to do much birding there!
No birds of note on a walk along the river Creuse opposite Crozant, but lots of common wall lizard and a couple of western green lizards in the rocky heathy areas. Last year I saw an asp viper here, but sadly no luck this year!
A nighttime visit to a small fishing pond in a wood local to our base near Aigurande produced quite a few agile frogs found on ferns, and a water frog (Pelophylax spp.) caught in the water.
With my friends soundly sleeping, at 8am I walked the 15 minutes from the campsite to the beach, where a few black-headed gulls and a turnstone were by the shore. Walking towards the marshy area to the north, there were a couple of white wagtail families with juvs; on the marsh there were quite a few more, and a grey wagtail assosiating with one of the families.
Around 15 black-headed gulls and 30 ringed plovers were on the shore by the marsh, a curlew flew over northwards, a great many swallows flying around - and after it made itself known by flushing the plovers, I had a great view of a hobby.
Visited Île d'Olèron during the day, no birds of note in the forest between Saint-Trojan-Les-Bains and Le Grand-Village-Plage, but we did find some water frogs in a pond. Frogs in the Pelophylax species complex are difficult to differentiate, and the location was within the overlap zone of marsh, Iberian, and Graf's hybrid water frogs; but based on their hind foot webbing, we believe they could be marsh or Graf's.
Good view of some cattle egrets next to the D119E2 near Saintes on our drive to our base in the Creuse department - nothing else of note, apart from good views of buzzards along the roads.
A short holiday to France with my good friend Ethan and his partner. For a bit of context, Ethan and I both studied Zoology with Herpetology and met at university; neither him nor his partner are particularly interested in birds but I hope to see some interesting continental species along with the reptiles and amphibs! (I'm also the only driver, so drive-by birding is... limited)
DAY 1
Sadly an overnight crossing from Portsmouth to Cherbourg meant no opportunity to spot seabirds; leaving my bins in the car accidently meant I couldn't even spot any in the early morning!
Absolutely torrential rain followed us the entire drive to our campsite near Royan, so we weren't particularly inclined to stop anywhere nice for a break and didn't see anything interesting until a brief view of 2 common cranes and plenty of little and cattle egrets on the approach to La Rochelle along the D10A and D9. Quite a lot of crane nests on top of the pylons here too.
Hearing a bird that I didn't recognise in the trees above our tents at La Palmyre, Birdnet ID'd it as a short toed treecreeper, which I subsequently saw in the tree.
Sadly a short nighttime walk in the Forêt de la Coubre didn't produce any nightjar, but we did hear tree frogs (we believe both European and Mediterranean species) and found a spiny toad - our first herp of the trip.
(Photo by Ethan Townsend)
-- Edited by Oliver Morris on Wednesday 21st of August 2024 10:05:09 PM
-- Edited by Oliver Morris on Wednesday 21st of August 2024 10:12:29 PM
