Provence 2008: A Great Book

Michael put me onto this title while I was planning our Camargue trip, and I can’t recommend it enough: not only does it have a fine set of clearly described itineraries for birding the most important sites (one of which we lifted nearly wholesale for this year’s trip), but this attractively produced book also provides a really wonderful introduction to the geology, history, and ecology of an area that for most first-time visitors can be entirely exotic and strange.

Separate chapters treat the flowers, the insects, the reptiles and amphibians, the mammals, and, of course, the birds one is likely to see in the Camargue, the Crau, and the limestone cliffs of the Alpilles, and there are thorough lists in the appendices. For many casual visitors to the area, the stunning and accurately labeled photographs will make it unnecessary to consult any other guide: sturdily bound, the book fits easily into a pocket or a fanny pack, and again and again on this trip my copy was among the most in-demand volumes in our traveling library.

Crossbill also produces guides to Spain, Hungary, and Poland, with more to come, and the first step I will take in planning my next visit to any of those countries will be to read and relish those books. I am not aware of any US distributor of these titles, unfortunately, but they are widely available in English in Europe and directly from The Crossbill Foundation.