Ile de Re - 27th Sep '21 to 3rd Sept '21

 After all the on/off COVID restrictions in both the UK and Europe Pam and I finally got away to France at the end of August. Following our usual overnight stay at Camping St Louis in Autingues we headed for the Atlantic coast arriving at Eden Villages Camping L'Ocean on the Ile de Re on the 27th.

The Isle de Re is located about mid-way down the French Atlantic coast and is connected to La Rochelle by a spectacular road bridge which cost €16 for a car but there is no toll on leaving the island. Once on the island a bike is the perfect way to get around as there are cycle tracks all over the island.

Black-winged Stilt

The L'Ocean camp site was an ideal base and we spent most of our time exploring the salt pans and marshes west of the camp site but did make a couple of trips to the main town Saint Martin de Re.

Ile de Re: 1 Camp site, 2 Lilleau des Niges Reserve, 3 Phare des Baleines, 4 Tidal mudflats

We recorded 110 species during our week on the island with a good mix of resident and migrant species. All our records are on eBird under Isle de Re. For some reason the subsidiary sites on eBird for Isle de Re don't link to an island total so I entered everything as Ile de Re. 

There are some regular French birders who also put records on eBird so it's fairly easy to get an idea of what occurs where and when.

Salt pans close to Ars en Re

The campsite itself held a variable number of passerines with Firecrests, Pied Flycatchers and up to 3 Melodious Warblers.

Firecrest - male looking rather worn

Melodious Warbler

A couple of Black Redstart frequented a restaurant on the Chemin du Jardin du Boutillon. A small wooded area close to the coastal mud flats at 46.2073 -1.4915 held more migrants with Common Redstarts and several Common Nightingale giving their distinctive, autumnal croaks and whistles. As usual they were a lot easier to hear than see!

Common Nightingale

There was a small passage of birds of prey with Honey Buzzards on 29th (2), 1st (6), and 2nd (2). I also saw a Short-toed Eagle on 1st September which is close to the northern edge of its range in France and must be scarce on the Ile de Re and an Osprey flying south over the sea on the same day. Single Hobby were seen most days with three on the 1st.

Honey Buzzard - adult male top and juv 

Osprey -juv

Eurasian Hobby - adult

Marsh Harrier - male with Belgian wing tags

Living inland I was interested to see what gulls were present on the island. Around the salt pans there were individual Yellow-legged Gulls with a maximum of 10 counted. I also encountered several groups of Lesser Black-backed Gulls of the western race graellsii and up to 40 Herring Gull. Great Black-backed Gulls were seen in single figures and appear to be resident birds from the reports on colour ringed birds I saw. I counted 94 Mediterranean Gulls which favoured a small pool by the harbour at Ars en Re. Several birds were colour ringed and whilst some had been ringed in France two were from Hungary.

Yellow-legged Gull with darvic ring

Mediterranean Gull with French colour ring

The various salt pans held a few waders, particularly at high tide but there were many hundreds more out on the mud flats which must be an important feeding area for migrant shorebirds. 

I counted over 800 Black-tailed Godwits from a photo when they were disturbed over the mud flats but I only saw two Bar-tailed Godwits.

Black-tailed Godwits

There were many hundreds of Ringed Plover but I was unable to find any Kentish Plover which are here in small numbers. Amongst the Dunlin I found a couple of Little Stint and Greenshank were seen or heard every day.

I was pleased to see migrating Turtle Doves most days but three was my best day count. News this year that France has now banned the hunting of Turtle Doves is very welcome and gives some hope for the species future.

Turtle Dove

On 31st August I noted 47 Spoonbill on the mud flats in area 4 which increased to 58 the following day. As I was watching a group of 30 the following day they all took flight and flew directly over my head which was quite a spectacle. From photos it looked like at least one bird had a metal ring and several birds had coloured Darvic rings (see photo below).

Eurasian Spoonbill

Eurasian Spoonbill - lower bird with coloured leg ring

I only made one trip to the Phare des Baleines lighthouse area which is the best place for sea watching. I managed Gannet and several Sandwich and Common Terns with Sanderling and Turnstone on the beach. There were more Pied Flycatchers in the wooded areas and I had several Serin and calling Cetti's Warblers nearby.

Phare des Baleines

Since returning from the Ile de Re I have found a detailed write up by the Pajot family on the Cloud Birders web site of a year spent on the Ile de Re where they saw as many species as possible travelling on foot or by bike. They managed 250 species with a good selection of rarities so its well worth a look if you are thinking of visiting the island.

On the road to Croatia 21st - 28th May

I've only visited Croatia once before when I went to the island of Krk in April 2016 looking, unsuccessfully, for Rock Partridge. It's an interesting country and ornithologically it marks where east meets west for a number of European species which either just reach Croatia from the west or extend no further west than Croatia from the east, if that makes sense? It's also probably the most reliable country in which to see Rock Partridge so with the promise of some interesting stops on route Pam and I set off in the camper late on 21st May to catch the midnight ferry to Dunkirk spending our first night in a lay-by on the Belgium border.

Our route to Croatia with stops highlighted

Our first stop was Bruges and as luck would have it, or so I thought, a Black-winged Kite had been reported the previous day about 5km from our campsite at Memling so that was our first stop. We wondered around an unremarkable road side for about an hour with few birds and no birders in sight then headed to our campsite and walked in to Bruges.

Bruge central square

Heading towards Luxembourg we stopped in SE Belgium at Chateau Lavaux-Sainte-Anne, Pam paid €5 for a walk around the Chateau whilst I walked around the small lake. A Bluethroat was singing from a small island on the lake and there were distant Honey Buzzards over the woods but Pam saw many more birds as the Chateau was filled with stuffed birds!
Our 3rd overnight stop was at the tiny village of Rodemack just inside France on the border with Luxembourg. The weather was warm and sunny and the local woods resounded to the songs and calls of Nightingale and Golden Oriole with Wryneck calling in an apple orchard. In the evening Nightjars churred around the camping area.

Nightingale in song

The following morning I added Black Kite and Marsh Harrier to the raptor list before we continued on our way.
Our next stop, chosen at random from places close to the route we were following, was at Blaubeuren between Stuttgart and Munich. Steep wooded sides to a valley had several Red Kites circling overhead and the river had Dipper by a picturesque water mill. A Marsh Warbler was singing by the river but evaded my attempts for a photo. Fieldfare were nesting around an area of parkland and we saw what was almost our only White Stork of the trip crossing the valley. 
Pam had highlighted a number of places on the journey that she wanted to visit and one of these was Hallstatt the iconic Austrian lakeside town. We had booked accommodation for a couple nights in Obertraun at the Sportspension Schober which proved to be a good choice as we could walk the 5km to Hallstatt or as it turned out catch a small boat and walk back. 
There were not many birds but Lesser Whitethroat and our first of many Black Redstarts were new for the trip. The weather had deteriorated and we arrived in the rain but fortunately we had decent weather for our visit to Hallstatt. The vast majority of visitors  were Chinese and we were surprised to hear that a replica of Hallstatt has been built in China!

Hallstatt in the rain

After Hallstatt we crossed the border in to Slovenia and stopped at Bled at a campsite right by the lake. It rained all the time we were there which was frustrating as Bonelli's Warblers were singing in the campsite and it was a difficult decision whether to stay and wait for better weather or continue. The weather forecast was poor for several days ahead so we decided to continue southward making a stop at Lake Cerknica. Light rain was still falling but I spent a couple of hours around the lake and had reasonable views of Ashy-headed Wagtails (Motacilla cinereocapilla) which the lake is well known for.

Ashy-headed Wagtail - males

Ashy-headed Wagtail - female type

At least a dozen Hobby were hawking over the lake but very distant. Several Serin were in bushes close to the track and I heard another Marsh Warbler but the persistent rain got the better of me and we continued on crossing the border in to Croatia which was only about 90 mins south of Cerknica.
Our next stop was on the island of Krk which I'll cover in the next post.

Lake Bled Slovenia

Southern Bulgaria

Leaving Slovenia I was slightly apprehensive about crossing Serbia, not sure why, but I decided to cross the country in one go then into Bulgaria.
In the end my worries were unfounded, crossing the border from Croatia the roads after the border were rather bumpy and I thought this was a sign of things to come but the roads improved and the scenery for the first couple of hundred miles was much like Croatia with flat farmland as far as the eye could see. After Nis the scenery started to change and the countryside was much more undulating with green hillsides, colourful villages and a deep, long gorge as the Bulgarian border approached. It would be an interesting area to explore at another time.
I stayed overnight just outside Sofia, just by the crossroads where the road to Kulata and the Greek border starts. I followed the dual carriageway until it ended just short of the Kresna Gorge although it looks like the road will bypass the gorge in the future but for now it's shared with hundreds off lorries travelling in both directions. As I left Sofia I was concerned that I might not be able to find fuel but I have never seen so many petrol stations, they seemed to be every few kilometres presumably feeding the constant flow of lorries.

Kresna Gorge

The gorge is beautiful and I was soon seeing large numbers of butterflies, Scarce Swallowtail was one of the most conspicuous but there were blues, coppers and whites, which will have to be identified later.

Scarce Swallowtail

Nightingales were singing everywhere but were never easy to see, singing from the densest cover. 

Nightingale

Cirl Buntings sang from the tree tops and in the highest part of the gorge, Griffon Vultures sailed overhead.

Cirl Bunting

Before the motorway started again on the final 10 Kilometres or so before the Kulata crossing I turned left and explored the hillside up to Melnick and then on to Rohzen where I stayed a couple of nights.

Red-Rumped Swallow

I found Eastern Orphean Warblers, Golden Orioles, plenty of Red-rumped Swallows, my first Alpine Swifts and Tree Pipit of the trip and a lot of butterflies, Green Hairstreaks, even Common Glider and Camberwell Beauties but it wasn't until my last day that I finally found the Sombre Tit which was one of my target birds for the area, didn't manage a photo but got quite good views as it hopped around at the top of a large tree. 
So I leave Bulgaria, for now, and head for Greece and the famous Lake Kerkini which is fed by the Stroma River I have been following and is only about 40Km as the migrating birds fly.

Route so far