Birds I'm Watching: Where Have All the Swifts Gone? (and Other Topics)

Back in France now, I've had time to consolidate various lists and notes made in haste while traveling. This seems a good time to look back at the bird watching I've done so far while in Europe. One thing I noticed immediately upon arriving back in Pouzolles is that the flocks of martins, swifts, and swallows have thinned tremendously. Where did they all go? There are still a fair number of house martins around, but the swallows and swifts are mostly gone. I had become used to their incessant screeching. Now it's relatively quiet. Last night, however, two Scops Owls were noisily exchanging calls. Their voices sound remarkably like submarine sonar pings--or at least like the sonar pings one hears in the movies.

Having arrived in London June 7, I've been in Europe for going on two months now, with three weeks to go. I had hoped to add 100 birds to my life list this summer, but so far have seen only 52 (see below). Birds have been relatively few and far between here--which is somewhat surprising. In habitats that would be rich with birds in Sonoma County, California (home) there is often little activity here-- notably, at the coast. Still, 52 isn't bad. I've averaged almost one new bird every day. The Camargue area and Sardinia have been the best sites, so far.

In total, I have seen 64 species I've been able to identify. I've seen about 10 more I've been unable to figure out. I'm working on another five or six from photographs I've taken--for example, the terns shown here. I'm pretty sure these are Common Terns, but I try never to add anything to my lists unless I'm certain.

[Update: I've now decided these are Common Terns, which raises my total of species identified in Europe to 65. Further update: On July 31, I added the Tree Pipit to my list for Europe, so now 66, of which 54 have been life birds. On August 4, added Yellow Wagtail, for totals of 67 and 55. On August 11, I added Green Woodpecker and Melodious Warbler (or possibly Icterine Warbler) for totals of 69 and 57.]

New birds (new to me, that is) I've identified so far: Great Crested Grebe, Great Cormorant, Little Egret, Squacco Heron, Gray Heron, Purple Heron, Greater fFamingo, Eurasian Spoonbill, Common Pochard, Eurasian Coot, Common Tern, Black-winged Stilt, Common Sandpiper, Black-headed Gull, Greater Black-backed Gull, Red-legged Partridge, Eurasian Griffon Vulture, Black Kite, Red Kite, Common Kestrel, Eleanora's Falcon, Wood Pigeon, Turtle Dove, Common Cuckoo (heard only), Scops Owl (heard only), Common Swift, Alpine Swift, Spotted Flycatcher, Common House Martin, Hoopoe, European Bee Eater, European Roller, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Eurasian Jay, Western Jackdaw, Hooded Crow, Common (Eurasian) Magpie, Rock Pipit, Tree Pipit, Spotless Starling, Black Redstart, Dartford Warbler, Cirl Bunting, Common (Eurasian) Blackbird, Spanish Sparrow, the Corsican race of the Spanish Sparrow, European Goldfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, European Greenfinch, and Serin.

In addition to these, I've seen the following birds familiar from the US: House Sparrow, European Starling, Barn Swallow, Ring-necked Pheasant, Herring Gull, Eurasian Collared Dove, Common Moorhen*, (winter) Wren, Mute Swan, Whimbrel, and Cattle Egret. Many of these, of course, are imports from Europe. Pied Wagtails were common in England, but I had seen these before in Japan--assuming this is the same species.

[Update: I checked on the wagtail. They appear to be considered different races of the same species, with those resident in England called Motacilla alba yarrellii and those resident in Japan and elsewhere in Asia called Motacilla alba lugens. Isn't the Internet wonderful?]

[*Further update: The European moorhen, or Common Moorhen, and our Moorhen, now called Common Gallinule, were split in 2011 into separate species, so, technically, that added a species to my total of new birds on this European trip.]

Birds I'm Watching: Stilts, Flamingoes, and a Pair of Great Tits

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?