Provence 2010: Our Last Day of Birding

Already?

To our delight, my beloved Jardin de Manon was open for dinner last evening, and our hours with good food, good wine, a beautiful moth, and an acrobatic gecko in the hortus conclusus of one of Arles’s best restaurants were some of the most enjoyable of the entire tour—rivaled closely, though, by today’s visit to the Pont du Gard.

This Roman aqueduct carried water some 30 miles from the forested hills down to the municipal cisterns of Nîmes; one of the most beautiful utilitarian structures ever built, the graceful arcades over the wild river Gard attract tourists from around the world—and birds.

I’ve learned over the years to plan on an hour or more to get from the parking lot to the sidewalk leading to the pont; it was no different this time. European Serins, European Greenfinches, and European Goldfinches sang conspicuously from the trees while a Rock Sparrow, the principle target of birding visitors, fed on the newly cropped grass. Every time I visit I get the “best view ever” of that charming passerid, but this year’s sighting was really something else, bouncing around on the overflow parking lot to show off its clunky head pattern and finely spotted throat with the elusive yellow patch.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker low on the young trees surrounding the lot was the first picid of the tour for the group, and as the sky warmed, Alpine Swifts emerged to make up for having stood us up at Les Baux a few days ago.

An astonishing number of kayakers in bright green and yellow boats—hundreds of them—were a true spectacle as they passed beneath the ancient bridge.

They took downstream with them our hopes for some of the specialties of this site, but we did discover a Little Ringed Plover in flight over a promising gravel bar, while at least one pair of Eurasian Crag Martins (another holdout at Les Baux) swooped in and out of the great arches among the Common and Alpine Swifts. A European Roller, the first I’d ever seen right at the bridge, out-blued even the blue Mediterranean sky as it flew circles high, startlingly high, overhead, but not even that fine bird (one of two individuals we’d see while we were out) could match the experience of watching a European Jay vigorously anting on the edge of the parking lot when we returned to the car.

Common as it is, this is a shy bird, far more often heard than seen, and usually seen only as a flash of blue and a collection of glaring white patches as it passes between the trees. This individual landed on an anthill, where it spread its tail and brilliant wings in the classic “passive” anting posture.

The bird also frequently interrupted its extravagant contortions to apply ants to its plumage, picking them up in its bill and wiping them beneath the wings–a behavior apparently very uncommon in this well-known species. (Distant video here.)

It turned out that that itchy beauty was the last bird to be added to our trip list, but there was more to see. We ate lunch in Beaucaire, in the shadow of yet another medieval castle proleptically destroyed by Richelieu and now occupied mostly by Western Jackdaws and Black Redstarts. We returned to Arles just as rain began to fall,  then returned to Arles just as rain began to fall—for the first time since we gathered here in the heart of Provence nine days ago, for what has turned out to be one of the most enjoyable editions of one of my most enjoyable tours.

Tomorrow to the train station with the group, then to Marseille and on to Vancouver. And soon, next year, back to the most beautiful places on earth.