Spent the day yesterday mostly near Saintes-Marie de-la-Mer, at the tip of land that projects south at the mouth of the Rhône. The wetlands of the Rhône delta, the Camargue, are the most extensive in Europe and comparatively undisturbed, I'm told--although I saw an awful lot of rice paddies, which, obviously, are manmade (in places the roadside view was reminiscent of Japan). I did see some of the famous Camargue horses and bulls, but few of them seemed to be wild. Horse and bull were on the menu in all the restaurants. I saw signs for upcoming bullfights.
This is supposed to be one of the world's greatest bird watching areas, but July must be a bad time of year, as there were not many birds around and the diversity of species was low--which has been true throughout this trip. It makes me appreciate the extraordinary number of species that live near home, where I can see more species in a morning at my bird feeder on a good day than I've seen on this whole trip--or so it seems. A place like Bodega Bay is overflowing with birds by comparison. Having said that, the birds here are different and mostly new to me. Despite the relative paucity of species, I added seven new species to my life list yesterday, so I can't really complain.
The town of Saintes-Marie de-la-Mer itself was mostly tourist restaurants and cheap shops. Go early if you want to park anywhere. I read that the population in the winter is about 2,500 and that it's around 50,000 at this time of year. The beaches are beautiful, nevertheless. When I enquired about a good restaurant, though, I was told that to eat well in the town you have to leave the town--which didn't surprise me much.
There is a very old church that looks as much like a fortress as a church, complete with crenelations and loopholes. You can climb up on the roof to get a view of the town and the sea in one direction, the marshes of the Camargue in the other. In May, the town hosts a gypsy festival that draws people from all over Europe. Inside the church was a statue of Saint Sara, the patron saint of the gypsies.
I had the best luck birding in some of the marshes flanking the main road through the area, the D570, near Pont du Gau. There I finally got a good close-up look at flamingoes in the wild (this is the Greater Flamingo, a bit different from the Chilean Flamingo better known in the Americas). The flamingo here is the flamingo of Africa, and the Camargue is the only place in Europe that it breeds in the wild, according to what I've read. They are nearly white--barely pink--but with bubble-gum pink legs and pale pink bills, flaming orange and black wings, and impossibly long necks--most obvious with the wings spread in flight.
Other new birds for me were: Grey Heron, Black-winged Stilt, Little Egret, Spoonbill, Black Kite, and Great Tit. I watched a pair of the tits flitting around the small, wiry trees by the side of the marshes. The stilts are similar to our black-necked stilts, but with a white neck. The Grey Heron looks like a whiter, blotchy great blue heron. The Little Egret looks very much like our Snowy Egret. I've probably seen a spoonbill before, but I count it as a new bird as I doubt I've ever seen one in the wild, until yesterday.
The Great Tit is similar to the Coal Tit I saw in England, but it has a distinctive black stripe down its belly. It's also a somewhat larger bird. This is an area that would take weeks to explore. I may have simply missed the best spots. During spring and autumn migration, I imagine there are many more birds. There is a Parc Ornithologique (admission costs €7) that gives convenient access to extensive marshy areas, but I saw nothing there that I hadn't already seen outside the park, except the Great Tits. There was a small group of Common Pochards, as well, but I haven't counted these, as they seemed to have taken up permanent residence at the park--so not completely wild. Still, a Pochard is a Pochard.
Late in the day, we drove to the ocean again but on the east side of the main wetlands, down to Salin-de-Giraud and the vast salt pans to the south of the town. The photo here looks like Dover, but the white "cliff" is a 40ft-high wall of sea salt. The salty water had a pinkish cast, as briny places always seem to do. I have heard the color comes from myriad brine shrimp--and even that flamingoes are pink because they eat mostly these or other little shrimp. I'm not sure that's true, but salt pans always seem to be pink. When flying into San Francisco I always enjoy coming in low over the pink partitioned areas of water you can see there, which are also salt pans, I believe. French sea salt is famous and much of it comes from this place. I wonder what happens to San Francisco sea salt?
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