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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rob_S" data-source="post: 3553189" data-attributes="member: 140558">Marais du Cotentin et du BessinWe also visited a couple of parts of the vast Marais du Cotentin et du Bessin regional nature park.<a href="http://www.parc-cotentin-bessin.fr/" target="_blank">http://www.parc-cotentin-bessin.fr/</a>The Maison du Parc is less than five minutes from the N13, just north of Carentan - follow the signs for Maison du Parc. From the visitor centre, there's a 2km walk visiting three hides around a secluded small-ish lake. This site provided the absolute highlights of our birding during the week. We were the only visitors, and had grandstand views of a Black Winged Stilt on an island in the middle of the lake, less than 10ft from a pair of Garganey taking a nap, whilst another pair of Garganey were on the water between the island and the hide. Several otters made brief appearances too. Magic.The area is home to a small population of breeding White Stork. A couple of these were circling high overhead, and we later saw another in a field next to the road.The reedbeds here were alive with Sedge Warbler and Reed Warbler, regular groups of hirundines overhead, and a pair of Marsh Harriers.From here, we drove back over the N13 following the D913, and followed signs for the Utah Beach museum, before turning sharp right through Utah Beach village and following the minor road to the Domaine de Beauguillot - car park on the left as the road takes a sharp right turn. This is a straight out-and-back path to the sea, passing two hides overlooking the reserve, where we saw a further pair of Garganey, a Great White Egret and a number of Coypu.I'd imagine this latter site is pretty special over winter, as it looks to be perfect wildfowl habitat.Hopefully the info in this thread is of use to someone, at some point.</blockquote>

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