Cranes SE France (1 Viewer)

[George Edwards]

Huge amount of common cranes flying past Nice Monaco today. We saw several thousand coming in strings of hundreds over an hour or two period. Some out at sea some over the mountains catching thermals. Didn’t think they came this way. All the walkers looking up to see what was going on

 

[Richard Prior]

Huge amount of common cranes flying past Nice Monaco today. We saw several thousand coming in strings of hundreds over an hour or two period. Some out at sea some over the mountains catching thermals. Didn’t think they came this way. All the walkers looking up to see what was going on

Thanks for the heads up George, I'm on lookout here in the northern Alps, a flock of c200 went north past Annecy on Friday late afternoon, but they always seem to veer off towards Geneva and the Swiss plateau after that instead of trying to come up our valley towards the mountains!

 

[George Edwards]

Richard, Here's a screenshot from vid of the last flock we watched going over, which I reckon has 5 or 600 birds in it. If you turned your head to the right towards Cannes there would have been similar flocks out in the distance and to the east same disappearing, so if they're there you really can't miss them. Spectacular. Anyway if you're outside you can hear from miles away. At first I saw them while driving down the mountain and there was a smaller flock far out at sea. Not looking for birds I thought that's weird and thought maybe it was smoke. Then companion worked out what was going on having seen a much bigger group and we stopped to watch them work their way up the thermals. Then spent next few hours trying to find the best spot. Eventually they were passing right over our heads so I could get some vid with iPhone. Good luck!!

 

[Jos Stratford]

Very early returning birds up here in the Baltics, had birds both yesterday and today, and some were reported even a couple of weeks ago ...very unusual for mid-February