A Brit abroad

French Alps 2008 - Rock Partridge at last!

Last bank holiday weekend, I met up with former Cambs birder extraordinaire John Oates to search for a bird that we have both heard, but never seen - the Rock Partridge (Perdrix bartavelle). Our plan was to bird a road that runs north from Termignon into the Vanoise National Park, the same road from which Marcel and I had Snow Finch, Lammergeier, Rock Thrush and other Alpine specialities two years earlier. Last time we were there too late in the day to hope to pick up calling Rock Partridge, but the habitat looked good and old reports suggested that birds had been seen there previously. On arrival on Friday evening we headed straight up the road to scout out watch-points for the following morning, and were dismayed to find the road still completely blocked by snow below the tree-line. However, the highest accessible car park offered views over promising-looking areas of patchy snow, and we decided that it might still be possible to pick up a Rock Partridge distantly through a scope.

Fuelled by a hearty tartiflette the night before, early next morning we tried walking a section of the snow-blocked road in the hope of getting a little closer to the good-looking habitat. This was very slow-going, and would certainly have been safer and easier in snowshoes, but after about an hour of trudging we got out to the other side relatively unscathed (although I did rather embarrassingly manage to fall on my backside just as two skiers cruised past us). Amazingly, we soon heard our first calling Rock Partridge, and much closer than we had envisaged. After a few minutes' panciked scanning, I picked up a bird on the nearest hillock.

John, who had dipped them on several previous trips, was over the moon.

We soon located a pair, and another, and a glimpse of a third calling bird just over the ridgeline bought the total to 5 birds.

I was much more impressed by the birds than I expected to be - overall a much smarter, cleaner-looking bird than the Chukars I'd seen. The inaccessibility of the habitat, the bird's scarcity and the fact that we'd both previously looked for and missed it made the victory all the sweeter.

Posted by rjhall at May 8, 2008 3:41 PM