WINGS Birds and Art in Provence: Day Five

June 3 found us heading south on a bright, clear morning to the Mediterranean coast at Stes-Maries. Unlike last year’s rainy, windy, brutal day, the Camargue and the dike road treated us to one of those perfect southern France days, with bright air and gentle winds, perfect for leisurely birding our way down the bird-filled 25 miles or so to the shore.

It was another good European Roller day, with no fewer than five individuals on the way down.

This is a bird that’s impossible to ignore (and almost as hard, I found, to photograph!), and so much more beautiful than the pictures in the birdy-books make it seem. And soon enough we found it sharing the landscape with another improbably colored creature.

Greater Flamingos abounded in the roadside pools as we approached Stes-Maries, and even after we’d seen our first several hundred, the sight of them continued to draw eyes and attention away from whatever else we happened to be looking at at the moment.

But there was a lot more to see than tall pink birds, compelling as they were. Careful scanning of the mudflats produced a few Kentish Plovers

and European Oystercatchers.

But by far the best birds of the morning were the smallest. We were slowly driving the gravel road to Méjanes when a small gang of Linnets appeared on the roadside; as we tried to maneuver for better views of the leapfrogging little creatures, a bird paused on a wire inside a bush: Spectacled Warbler! Amazingly, it remained long enough for everyone to get on it–and to see it joined by another, paler bird, no doubt the female of the pair. This is probably a common enough bird out on the salicornia flats, but they’re tiny and inconspicuous, and these were a lifer for everyone in the group. Not bad!

Inspired, we pressed on to Stes-Maries, where before lunch at Kahlua we took some time to drop in to the church. It’s an odd structure, heavily fortified and ship-like, famous around the world as the pilgrimage site for gypsies, whose semi-annual gathering had just concluded a couple of weeks before. In the crypt is the heavily draped effigy of Sarah.

Serving girl to Mary Salome and Mary Mother of James, Sara drifted with them to the mouth of the Rhone, where she too attained saintliness and is now the patroness of the gypsies–and seems to attract much more devotion than either of the Maries for whom the church and the town are named.

After lunch we enjoyed Bee-eaters, Little and two surprising Caspian Terns, and Slender-billed Gulls along the Digue road, then returned to Arles for our regular afternoon break. We gathered in the late afternoon for a stroll to the Alyscamps, one of the most peaceful sites around and the origin of many of the ancient sarcophaguses we’d admired on Sunday.

Lots–literally piles upon piles–of sarcophaguses remain in situ, making the atmosphere pleasantly creepy. But on a day like this, with bright skies and the voices of Blackcaps and Great Tits all up and down the shaded alley, the place just couldn’t rise to the level of a memento mori.