Sure made me miss Provence.

Arles.

Les Baux, June 2009.

La Caume, June 2009.

La Caume, June 2009.

There’s no real way to sum up a tour as good as this spring’s Provence trip. The birding was great, the food was if anything even better, and the participants are all my friends now. Writing about the trip on the b-log and in my formal tour report, I felt nearly as sad at the end of my prose as I had at the end of our ten days!

Every tour, of course, leads to revision of the next, and the new itinerary for 2010 includes two significant alterations. I’ve removed Ventoux from the tour; though birding there can be good, I’ve now had two years of absolutely lousy weather up there, with snow in 2008 and rain in 2009. The only halfway reliable species we give up is Citril Finch, which showed reasonably well this year–and was found only on the scouting days in 2008.

And our day in Avignon, delightful as that town can be, is going to be replaced by visits to some of the Van Gogh sites around St-R émy, itself a wonderful medieval village with plenty to do and see. Unfortunately, none of the artist’s works is exhibited anywhere near our tour route, but we can see the hospital where he was admitted after that awkward incident with the ear, and many of the famous views he painted are still available, virtually unchanged a century and a quarter later.

So come to Provence with me next year, May 30 – June 7. You’ll enjoy it, and I know I will!

As usual, it took us more than an hour to get out of the parking lot. The clearings and the woods along the River Gard are unfailingly full of birds, and between Common Redstarts, White Wagtails, and the best looks we’d had yet at Cirl Buntings (one of my all-time favorites), we ran up a fine list of good birds and good looks even before we set off on the hundred-yard walk to the aqueduct itself.

Fully aware that our time together was approaching its end, we paid special attention even to the commonest birds, from Serins to this proud Wood Pigeon.

As we walked towards the Pont, Alison spied a Short-toed Woodcreeper, which gave brief but good views–and was immediately replaced in our attentions by a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers at a nest cavity. This was the first picid most of us had seen on the tour, and for some their first Old World woodpecker ever–a good way to break into that family!

As the sun rose and the air warmed, a few raptors lifted off: mostly Black Kites, of course, but a pair of European Honey-Buzzards soared in circles over the other bank of the river, slow and lazy enough to get them in the scope for lingering views. This is a species I haven’t seen often, and I enjoyed watching them every bit as much as did the rest of the group.

White and finally a couple of Gray Wagtails enlivened our wait for the star of the show, which arrived as a turquoise and orange streak down the river in front of us: Common Kingfisher. It perched on the rocks in the stream, flying from one to the other, giving everyone fantastic views of its implausibly bright blue back. We’d already managed excellent looks at Hoopoe, Roller, Cuckoo, and Bee-eater, and this sweet little kingfisher completed our list of the “big five” of European birding.

To our regret, we weren’t able to celebrate in traditional Pont du Gard fashion: the candy store is gone. So we turned back to the parking lot, hunger beginning to compete with birding. But just as it’s impossible to get to the pont with anything like promptness, the return to the vehicles is always delayed by one thing or another. This time it was by a flyby Golden Oriole, followed by exquisitely good scope views of Rock Sparrow–we’d had brief looks at a couple on the way in, but the bird that fed on the ground for ten minutes or more was superlative, even showing his throat spot a time or two. This is the bird of the Pont du Gard, and I was doubly happy to see it this year having missed it last.

Not even that was enough, it seemed. As I turned from the Rock Sparrow, a yellow rump vanished into the woodland edge. So we stood and waited, and finally two Green Woodpeckers materialized out of the grass, perching low on tree trunks for all the world to admire.

Fearing that we’d never get lunch, I had to just put it to an end. We piled back into the vehicles and drove to Beaucaire, a rough-and-ready town on the Rhone with a famous castle–and on that afternoon, a bull fight.

We couldn’t linger for the main event, but we watched the excitement as the bulls were drive down the main street by gardiens on white Camargue ponies with their classic trident prods. The youth of the town ran with the bulls as they raced helter-skelter beneath the plane trees: quite a scene, and one we would have missed if not for all the avian interruptions in the parking lot at the Pont du Gard.

It was Saturday, of course, and so we had to start with a couple of hours at the weekly Arles market, an incredible extravaganza of Provençal products that stretches for several blocks along the Blvd des Lices, right outside our hotel.

It stretches for blocks, but it seems endless: soaps and spices, olives and wine, textiles and cheeses, chickens and hares and pheasants and guineafowl. It’s all more than a little overwhelming, and more than a little irresisible, too.

We loaded up our purchases, added some of them to the supplies we’d laid in the day before in Avignon, and headed out into the marshes. And it was a great day, with new birds added to the trip list and better looks added to our personal wish lists every few minutes. Most of us finally got satisfying glimpses of Cetti’s Warbler, and the European Bee-eater colony Alison and I had scouted performed mighty well. The ponds of the Mas d’Agon were at first frustrating, with birds popping up for one or the other member of the group, then vanishing before the rest of us could get on them.

But patience and careful scanning paid off. We got a new perspective on some common birds: a family of Mute Swans included one white cygnet (a “Polish”-type bird), and a pair of Great Crested Grebes was providing grebe-back transport for their stripy chicks. And soon enough the specialties started to appear. Whiskered and Common Terns fed over the water, swooping low over our heads as they crossed the road. Squacco Herons emerged to feed in the open, giving us the best views of the entire tour. The high point of the day for me came when first one, then another Little Bittern flew across the road, the first time I’d ever seen this uncommon and secretive species in western Europe.

And then it was time to celebrate.

The tables at La Capelière are rustic, and the tableware would likely not have passed muster with the Avignon popes (at least we all had knives)–but I can’t imagine a better setting to enjoy the breads and the cheeses and the salads and the wines of Provence.

Sustained physically and ornithologically, we moved north, stopping for a flock of Gull-billed Terns that gave us a merry run, flycatching over the fields and moving away, away. But they behaved better than the pratincoles of Chassagne, which never showed at all. Their absence made hardly a dent in the great experience of a great day in the Camargue.

But the focus of the day was Avignon, site of the Babylonian Captivity finally resolved by the Council of Constance (where Jan Hus was burned), and today a very charming little town with a very imposing big palace. We started out in Les Halles, the beautiful indoor market, where we provisioned ourselves for the next day’s picnic, then walked through the rainy streets to the Palais des Papes, stopping on the way to admire the Renaissance doors of St-Pierre.

The church itself was a project of one of the Avignon popes in the 1380s, but the spectacular wooden carvings of the west front were produced in the sixteenth. The annunciation here is matched on the north doors by a St. Michael and a St. Jerome, all flanked by some truly fantastic grotesques.

There’s nothing inside to really compare with the splendor of these doors, but one chapel is dedicated with especial poignancy to Peter of Luxembourg, who came to Avignon in the 1380s to serve in the curia, then directly caught the plague and died. The effects of those hundred years on western culture and on individual fates can hardly be exaggerated.

We hastened on to the Papal Palace, which was appropriately grim and spooky in the rain.

I’ve decided next year to omit this visit from the tour’s itinerary: the time will be better spent visiting some of the Van Gogh sites in and around St-Rémy. But it’s still fun to get a sense of how massively well funded, and yet how fearful, the lives of the Avignon popes were. One tidbit I learned this year: only two people were allowed knives in the dining room–the pope and the meat carver.

Lunch at In and Off, a casual restaurant across the square, was surprisingly good this year, another reminder that you really can’t go wrong by asking the waiter what’s fresh on the menu! Then it was off to the Petit Palais, where some of the tremendous quantity of art brought in by, commissioned by, or stolen by the Avignon popes is on display. I’ve never once had enough time to go through the place slowly (it would take days upon days), but still greatly enjoyed visiting some of my old favorites, like this incredibly Gothic angel

and this so obviously suffering Job:

This year I tried to tear myself away from the sculpture and spend more time on the Italian painters.

While the rest of Avignon huddled around the Botticelli, I devoted myself to this sternly beautiful Florentine Virgin Mary and Christ Child, painted in the early fifteenth century by Mariotto di Nardo. She’s flanked by John the Baptist, Catherine (with her wheel), Margaret (with her poison cup), and Francis, but the most captivating bit is the orchestra at the foot of the throne.

As always, the day had gone too fast and threatened to grow too long. We maneuvered our way back out of Avignon and were in Arles by 5:15, giving us almost two hours before dinner–just time to begin sifting through the day’s memories.

A tile from the floor of the dining room in the Papal Palace, Avignon.

In spite of the beautiful openness of the habitat, birding can be challenging out here. But in our morning’s stroll out to the sheep barns and blind, we came up with European Rollers, Hoopoes, Greater Short-toed and Crested Larks, and plenty of Black Kites, the bird of the Crau. Among the real specialties of the area, we had outstanding looks at five Stone-curlews, including a pair just across the road from the parking area, and a lone male Little Bustard stuck his head up over the grass once in a while for at least a couple of us to tally.

Nearly as exciting as the birds was the insect life. The ditch running along the north side of the preserve was full, as always, of dragons and damsels, and an elegant mantis hitched a ride back to the vehicles on my pant leg.

There are two inviolable traditions after a visit to the Peau de Meau: lunch at the Hotel Crau

and a group photo at the Ecomuseum.

We had a nice afternoon’s break at our hotel in Arles, then set out on the five-minute walk to St-Trophime.

The sculpture of the west front, in all its stern severity, is truly breathtaking, but it’s the capitals of the cloister that are even more famous in the history of European art.

One of my favorites: the dream of the three kings, asleep in their shared bed.

The upper gallery was irresistible on such a beautiful day, and we all enjoyed the views of the cloister from above and the rooftops of Arles beneath the ancient tower of St-Trophime.

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.

The two major birding sites here are La Caume, a mixed woodland crossed by a wide, disused road, and Les Baux, the notorious hilltop castle perched above a beautifully preserved medieval village.

Birding the La Caume road.

We started at La Caume, hoping for some forest birding–a scarce commodity otherwise on this itinerary–and found it quiet, as usual. Common Chaffinches shouted at us all morning, giving some very fine views, but otherwise the only notable birds to give themselves up were a few Common Ravens and a small party of Crested Tits, which made up for the ungracious behavior of their Ventoux cousins by giving all of us good looks as they fed nervously in the conifers.

What La Caume never disappoints in, though, are flowers.

This year it was the rockroses that were especially beautiful, their soft violet petals and bright yellow anthers scattered all across the slopes.

This one was growing between what looks like two different species of rosemary.

And La Caume is also traditionally rich in butterflies, giving us something winged to look at even when the birding isn’t exactly fast-paced.

We left La Caume about noon for the quick drive up to Les Baux. The self-styled lords of Les Baux traced their ancestry, somewhat dubiously, to the magus Balthasar:

and so we entered the village through the Porte Mage, where we had a splendid lunch in the restaurant of the same name. Afterwards, some of us wandered the streets of town, and others of us made the assault on the castle ruins.

Up here, where natural stone and human structures merge, we had great looks at Crag Martin and Alpine Swift, while Serins and Black Redstarts sang from the rooftops of the village below.

Butterflying was good in the shelter of the castle walls, too, and my favorite lep image from the entire tour was the sight of an elegant swallowtail sharing its bed of lavender with a dashing little hawk moth.

then set out shortly before 8:00 for the Petite Camargue–the somewhat misleading name for what are the largest surviving reedbeds in all of France. The short drive out (everything on this tour is surprisingly close to Arles) was uneventful, until, that is, our first couple of Hoopoes led us into a neighborhood just off the highway.

We see many more, of course, on most days of the tour, but there’s something about hoopoes on tv antennas that just screams Mediterranean birding!

We got to the reedbeds and discovered that they were higher this year even than most, a bit of a frustration as we tried to see singing Great Reed Warblers and such. But by continuing south on the fishermen’s road out of Gallician, we eventually found a few openings where we could see in. We stood on the roadside and watched Great and Little Egrets, Gray and Purple Herons, and all the usual wonders of a big stand of reed; a lone Squacco Heron flew past, giving frustrating views (we’d make up for it later in the week, in spades), and the 15 or more Glossy Ibis that passed as we watched were a very good showing for this expanding but still rare invader.

And then from Marty came the fateful words. The rest of us swung around as if one body and got the scopes on two Purple Swamphens, an adult and a juvenile. They were visible on the edge of the reeds for a couple of minutes, then drifted back into the dense vegetation, never to be seen again. I’d never seen this huge, colorful rail in France, and while I think they’ve been seen annually for some years now, they’re never predictable outside of Spain. Bird of the day, possibly even bird of the trip for me!

Scamandre and its restrooms were closed (they’re now open only Wednesday through Sunday, it turns out), so we wandered a little ways down the road to a well-known White Stork nest, occupied by big, nearly flighted chicks.

I don’t know whether this was the mother or the father, but a second adult stork soaring high overhead was almost certainly the other parent. We ended up seeing three occupied nests this time, including one I hadn’t known about, found by Sue in the eastern Camargue. Great to see this splendid bird doing so well!

Our closest restroom possibility was Aigues Mortes, so we zipped down to that weird twelfth-century fortress.

Once a major port city, Saint Louis’s town is now a landlocked anachronism, and perhaps the more fascinating for it.

We wandered for a bit, enjoying both the historic side of Aigues Mortes

and its lively but somehow still tasteful tourist offerings.

And speaking of tasteful, our lunch at Le Duende, on a quiet side street just down from the church where Louis and his crusaders took the cross 750 years ago, was one of the best of the tour.

After lunch we drove north back through the Petite Camargue, looking to no avail for the swamphens; good luck, good timing, and Marty’s great eyes had come together in what appeared to have been a unique conjunction. On to St-Gilles, another important site in the history of the crusades, its west front often credited with the most beautiful Romanesque sculpture in France.

We “read” the iconography together, but what sticks most in my mind is how obvious the line of descent is from the early Christian sarcophaguses we’d seen in Arles the day before to the stately frieze figures here at St-Gilles.

A further hint of twelfth-century authenticity was added by a new mammal for the tour list:

The distant ancestors of this Black Rat, busy under the foundations of the church, no doubt stowed away with the pilgrims and crusaders who passed through St-Gilles in their thousands in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We gave this one and its friends a wide berth as we crept up the narrow alley on the north side of the church!