June 30, 2008
Late June in Languedoc
The summer birding doldrums have well and truly set in around Cambridge, and so I headed down to the south of France for a dose of Mediterranean specialities. In recent visits I have never failed to see at least one Little Bustard (Outarde canepetiere) when flying into Montpellier airport. This male was displaying.
I couldn't resist a second visit to the mixed heron/ibis colony at Scamandre, where several young Glossy Ibis (Ibis falcinelle) are now on show.
Only a small part of the colony is visible from the trail, but adults can frequently be seen flying to and from their nests.
While Cattle Egrets (Heron gardenoeuf) were the most abundant heron, I also saw reasonable numbers of Squacco Heron (Crabier chevelu) and Night Heron (Bihoreau gris).
Several Bee-eaters (Guepier d'Europe) were hunting around the reserve.
By mid-morning it was really too hot to bird, and the remainder of my birding consisted of getting up at 6am and cycling out to the source of the river Lez, a nice mixture of Mediterranean habitats. The pine-covered hillsides held Crossbill(Bec-croise d'Europe), Subalpine Warbler (Fauvette passerinette) and Woodlark (Alouette lulu). I spent much of my time in the shade of the riparian poplar groves, where the highlight was numerous sightings of Golden Oriole (Loriot d'Europe).
After much craning of the neck I was even able to have an obscured view of an oriole nest with at least one well-grown chick inside.
This female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Pic epeichette) was drumming and calling.
I had several glimpses of Rollers (Rollier d'Europe) flying over, but frustratingly none lingered. Hedgerows in the neighbouring arable land held good numbers of Tree Sparrow (Moineau friquet), Cirl Bunting (Bruant zizi), Melodious Warbler (Hypolais polyglotte) and Nightingale (Rossignol philomele), but perhaps the most surprising birds of the day were a party of 5 Gull-billed Terns (Sterne hansel) hawking insects over the fields, apparently a long way from the nearest standing water. Were these birds non-breeders or do they undergo long flights from nesting sites to food-rich areas?
