The Camargue and Crau mid-late June (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

Im going on a family holiday to the Camargue and the Crau from the 18th-30th of June and was wondering if anyone could help out with some good sites for a few species as I will only have a small amount of time for birding.

At the Camargue I would quite like to see:

Purple Gallinule
Little Bittern
Collard Pratincole
Caspian Tern?

At the Crau:

Lesser Kestrel
Roller
Little Bustard
Pin Tailed sandgrouse
lesser grey and Iberian shrike
black earded wheatear?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Cheers,

Greg

Try logging on to faune paca where you can see distribution maps for those species, Lesser Grey Shrike in the link below:

http://www.faune-paca.org/index.php?m_id=620&frmSpecies=488&sp_tg=1&tframe=0&action=sp&y=2013

It won't tell you exactly where to look but will give you an idea if they are in the area or not.

Cheers,

Jonathan

Copy I put on another thread:

http://www.ornithomedia.com/observations.html

Check this out! There are some interesting finds. In the Camargue there is a Lesser FLamingo plus some Red Footed and Eleanoras Falcons.

This gives some idea of the Crau reserve - its a winter count but some of the Bustards and Sandgrouse will still be around:
http://www.reserve-crau.org/images/5..._2012_PACA.pdf

and general info.
http://www.reserve-crau.org/

this page shows current sightings - its a couple of days out but not bad:
http://www.reserve-crau.org/5_4actualite.html

CAMARGUE

http://www.reserve-camargue.org/Ou-v...iseaux?lang=fr

Bit more complicated to get recent observations but click on here
http://www.reserve-camargue.org/Donn...-a,610?lang=fr
Then choose an equivalent month from a previous year. Sounds daft but at least will give you an idea of possible things and some of the places to go.

Bear in mind some of the roads are fairly difficult and some are closed to general public - sometimes can get caught out.

Mas Agon around the north side of the Camargue is good at migration times for Collared Pratincole - don't know whether they breed in the sme area...

Hi Greg:

Herself and I were in just the places you mention last August, looking for roughly the same set of species. We had a pretty good time, but found the birding very frustrating - birds are just so much more skittish there than we are used to. A scope - even a little travel version - would have been so useful (alas, we were camping, already had a heck of a lot of gear, couldn't really fit in the tripod as well).

ANYway - some good sites that we found:

Croix de la Crau: From St-Martin-de-la-Crau, go east on D113 about 8 km, go around on the roundabout to the third exit, bearing NE - I believe this is called the D25B. Right near the intersection, there are a couple of farm tracks on the right; we took the first, but I suspect we would have been better off on the second. We ended up in an orchard, and had to hop a drainage ditch to get to the good habitat. I think that the second track leads right into the stony habitat that you're looking for.

Anyway, this was a nice, quiet place to look at a number of rather distant birds. However, we did see Lanius meridionalis (I think that's Iberian Shrike) there, Tawny Pipit, and a couple of wonderful European Rollers. Hoopoe, however, was my best find... just because it's such an outlandish thing to look at.

We also tried the area south of Vergiere, a.k.a. Réserve Naturelle de Peau de Meau (from the N568, go east on the D24, then right on Ch. d'Istres a l'Étang de Aulnes; after a few km., keep left on the Ch. de Aulnes, rather than continuing straight on down the driveway to the Chateau de Vergieres; the split comes about 500m. before the Chateau).

We only had an evening there, but it could have repaid a much longer visit. Good close views of more rollers here, and many kestrels - but try as we might, though, we could not string any of them into Lessers. Little Bustard is supposed to be there, unfortunately we dipped. However, if you get there early in the morning, before the heat haze really cuts down the visibility, you might do better than we did.

Dipped on Sandgrouse in both places too, but that may be a question of the time of year - I think they're resident, but are more conspicuous sometimes than others, and August just is not a good time.

Cheers,

Peter

Here's a report of mine from 2007. It is from late April rather than June, but you may find some useful info about the sites. It was also a family trip with limited time available for birding:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=84905

Hi guys,

thank you all for your help!

Thanks for the links Jonathan and rosbifs I will make sure to keep an eye on them.

Cheers for the info Peter on la Crau hopefully I can get what you got as well...

Nice trip report Capercaillie71 it would be really nice to see Bonelli’s Eagle!

We also got Bonellis Eagle near the radar station - in 1976!!

I wanted to give you one more tip, Greg, before you go on your trip: in case no one else has mentioned it, try Les Marias de Vigueirat if you are in the vicinity. We visited this place on the same evening as we visited Peau de Meau, and therefore paid it only a (painfully) short visit. It was practically dusk by the time we arrived, and consequently we could ID very few of the many, many waders there (lapwings, snipe, some Tringas - all silhouetted, unfortunately, because of the late hour). However, I bring it to your attention because the infrastructure is so good - lots of raised boardwalks, and at least one good blind. We didn’t find anything else like it in the whole area - maybe a site for Little Bittern?

We found it based on a hint in the Where to Watch Birds in Europe by N. Wheately. This book pointed us towards the general area (the left bank of the Rhone, s. of the N113) as having good marshes; but I don’t think it mentioned this conservation area specifically. We just drove in towards the village of Mas Thibert (w. on D24 from the N568), and followed some signs that we came across.


However, there is good information on how to get there on the website: http://www.marais-vigueirat.reserves-naturelles.org/pages/page0GB.htm


Bon voyage,


P.C.