Just 40 miles from Arles is one of the great achievements of Roman engineering, the aqueduct and bridge known as the Pont du Gard.

Two thousand years old, the bridge can still be walked, but birders come here less for the splendor of its ancient stones than for the excitement of its birdlife. Alpine Swifts and Crag Martins nest under the arches, and they can be seen at dizzyingly close range as they shoot up and down the river. Gray and White Wagtails are common on the rocks out in the current, and Common Redstarts almost live up to their name here, nearly outnumbering their abundant cousins the Black Redstarts. We were very lucky to find the habitual perch of a Common Kingfisher, and the spectacular scope views this bird gave us more than made up for the unobliging behavior of the only other individual seen on the tour, a flash of turquoise rump and a sharp call as it disappeared beyond the bend in a Camarguais canal.

The great birding begins, quite literally, in the parking lot, and we had arrived early enough that the usual common passerines–Goldfinches, Serins, Greenfinches–were still feeding undisturbed in the vegetation between the parking spaces. A Cirl Bunting, a bird that had given us only fairly lousy views up to this point, teed up on a dead twig for great views, and the third and final Woodchat Shrike of the trip was waiting for us when we returned to the vans.

Photo Darlene Smyth

This evocative photo shows well the huge white primary patch and the extensive pale edging on the tertials characteristic of the race senator, the breeding Woodchat Shrike of central Europe.

We wished him well before we headed off to lunch in Nîmes, site of a slough of Roman monument, including the structure that has graced the covers of more French grammars than any other, the Maison carrée.

Built in honor of Augustus’s children, this incredibly well preserved temple somehow, improbably, fits perfectly into the urban streetscape of a large and bustling city, and for me at least it became the emblem of the charming matter-of-factness with which the French treat these priceless remnants of their past.

Les Baux, barely half an hour from St-Martin, is everyone’s favorite medieval village, perched high in the limestone hills of Les Alpilles with a ruined castle brooding above.

Black Redstarts love the place, but birders know it for a number of other specialties, most of which behaved nicely for us on the beautifully bright day we visited.  Crag Martins and Alpine Swifts nest in the cliffs and the ruins, and we were fortunate enough to see them coming off the roost and feeding low over our heads. A distant Blue Rock Thrush perched on a stony ridge, giving us prolonged scope views of a bird we saw nowhere else on the tour. And Sardinian Warblers, a life bird for nearly everyone in the group, were building a nest in the chaparral-like scrub while a fine male Serin fed a fledgling just a few feet ahead of us.

And how do birders at Les Baux celebrate a good morning? With lunch, of course!

I had the pasta.