Provence 2008: The Camargue I

Ever since Ludlow Griscom’s visit to Les Stes-Maries at the end of the First World War, southern France for American birders has meant first and foremost the Camargue, that fine (if dwindling) complex of marshes and salt flats in the delta of the Rhone River. And the Camargue, of course, means Greater Flamingos, 20,000 or more of which breed each year on a single inaccessible island–and spend their days feeding on roadside ponds and puddles.

But there’s much, much more out there, and our group spent parts of three days exploring the nooks and crannies of what remains, development and drainage notwithstanding, one of the most exciting birding areas in western Europe.

We divvied up our time between the Petite Camargue in the west, the area of Saintes-Maries in the south, and the marshes on the east side of the giant Etang des Vaccares.

The Petite Camargue, just south of St. Gilles and its splendid defaced Romanesque sculpture, is especially good for herons, and the morning we spent there gave us a list of no fewer than six species: Gray Heron, Purple Heron, Great Egret, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Squacco Heron, and Great Bittern–the last, as too often, just a voice (but an imposing voice!) from the reed beds of Scamandre. Somewhat surprisingly, we did not encounter Black-crowned Night-Herons until our final day in the Camargue, and even then only two individuals of what I think of as a fairly easy bird there. It was especially exciting to see so many of the herons in their nuptial prime, particularly the Little Egrets with their long, fine ponytails blowing in the breeze.

That breeze was daunting at times, and our visit to the Digue de la mer at Stes-Maries was downright stormy, the wind and rain coming off the Mediterranean making it almost impossible to bird even from the lee of our vans. It was hard on the birds, too.

But we persevered, ultimately finding that the same winds keeping us inside were keeping birds on the ground where we could see them. A loafing flock of larids just off the causeway included a dazzling variety (particularly for those of us from Arizona!); among the white dots were Little, Black, Whiskered, Common, Sandwich, and Gull-billed Terns, along with Yellow-legged, Black-headed, Mediterranean, and a half dozen fine little Slender-billed Gulls, that last a species we saw nowhere else on the tour.

Waterbirds are the stars of the Camargue, but it is a wonderful place for landbirding, too. Barn and Bank Swallows by the hundreds were moving over the Petite Camargue the morning we were there, and among them we found a single Red-rumped Swallow, my first ever in France. Cetti’s Warblers and Common Nightingales taunted us from every bush and thicket, and even in the wind at Ste-Maries Linnets and Western Yellow Wagtails were conspicuous in the reedbeds. And it was there that a Woodchat Shrike, the first of a heartening three that we would see on the tour, surprised us as it hunted the salicornia flats in the same stiff winds that had blown it across the sea from its wintering grounds in Africa.