The Desert and the Snow

One of the highlights of living on this corner of East Kent is that it sometimes plays host to interesting or unusual birds, particularly during the passage seasons of spring and autumn. Occasionally you might even get two such visitors in the same week, as happened recently with one rare bird and one not quite so rare (though no less charming). And better yet, neither of them were camera-shy.

The first was a Desert Wheatear (above) which spent several days foraging for insects on and around Joss Bay. On the day I went to see it, it was frequenting the edge of the cauliflower field overlooking the bay.

The all-black tail pattern (as compared to the T-shaped pattern of the more common Wheatear) is one of its main distinguishing features, but it can be difficult to see unless the bird is in flight (as shown below).

A few days after the Desert Wheatear departed, a Snow Bunting turned up on the stretch of coast between Dumpton Gap and Louisa Bay. Unlike the Desert Wheatear, Snow Buntings are annual winter visitors to the Kent coastline, though I usually have to go out to Reculver to see them.

This little bird was even more confiding than the Desert Wheatear, and not at all fazed by the people walking past and the array of lenses pointing at it. I had to back away from it several times just to keep it in focus.

Whereas the Desert Wheatear was feeding on insects, the Snow Bunting was foraging for seeds, using its beak to break open the husks.

Will we receive any more visitors before the end of the year? It has been a long time since I saw a Shore Lark, and a Lapland Bunting would be very welcome...

See also:

Birds of East Kent: Snow Bunting

More of my Desert Wheatear Photos on Flickr

More of my Snow Bunting Photos on Flickr

Two Days in the Camargue

As much as I love writing, if there was one thing I dreaded at school it was having to complete the "What I did on my holiday" essay. So, rather than bore you with every detail, I'm going to boil the trip down to its essentials (i.e. what I anticipate visitors to this blog would want to know about) and let the pictures do most of the talking. If you have any questions not covered by the ones given below then please use the comments section and I will do my best to answer them - though bear in mind that I'm more of a "photographer who happens to shoot birds" than a "birder who happens to have a camera". The object of the trip was not to track down the rarest species, but to have a good time and hopefully get some decent photos along the way. It's also worth noting that the Camargue is B-I-G; two days really only allows time for a whistle-stop tour, but you could easily spend a week there and still only scratch the surface.

Quick question: Was it worth it?
Quick answer: Absolutely, yes!

Did you have a guidebook to the region?
Most of the guidebooks I could find for sale are a few years out of date, but there is a free booklet online which proved to be extremely useful. It contains maps, species lists, and much more. The English-language version is available via this link:

Where to watch birds in the Camargue Regional Nature Park - France (PDF)

Using Arles as a base, we visited four of the eleven sites listed, as well as the very pretty - and very touristy - town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

So what's the big deal about the mistral?
The mistral is a wind, but it's not like any wind you'll experience in England. When it decides to blow it will do so all day - at the same speed and in the same direction - and it won't ease off until the sun goes down. The Camargue is mostly flat, so there aren't many places you can shelter from it. A light, windproof jacket is recommended.

What else should I take?
Sun cream and insect repellent. Make sure you carry plenty of drinking water too; even in September the temperatures can reach the high twenties.

Best place to go to photograph birds?
There may well be other reserves (that we didn't have time to visit) within the Camargue that provide a similar experience, but if you want to see the key species of the region at close quarters and get photos "in the bank", so to speak, then the Pont de Gau bird sanctuary is the place to go. As well as the famous flamingos, we saw, among other things, grey herons, little egrets, cattle egrets, spotted redshanks, black-tailed godwits, avocets, black-winged stilts, spoonbills, and a sacred ibis (below). Admittedly, with the exception of the flamingos and the ibis, these are all species you can see in England with increasing regularity, but probably not all in one place, and certainly not within a few feet of the viewing hide.

Recommended eating?
All three of the restaurants we visited in Arles were good, but the Restaurant Le Plaza La Pailotte was exceptional. I had the duck breast (don't tell the wildfowl!) and it was, quite simply, one of the finest meals I've ever had. (And no, I didn't take a photo of my food.)

Other highlights that you can't convey in a photograph?
Bats flying above the Rhone at sunset, the strangely soothing background noise of insects (presumably crickets) chirping at night, stumbling upon a bizarre tractor parade in Arles on Saturday evening, still being able to feel the lingering warmth of the sun and the force of the mistral on my face long after the sun had gone down, the sheer physical and historical presence of the Arles Roman Amphitheatre (below), waking up early to see Sirius shining higher in the sky than I've ever seen it before, and of course a welcome reminder that you can't beat a genuine French baguette.

Anything else worth knowing?
The SatNav on the rental car was, unsurprisingly, in French. After some fumbling we found the option screen to change the language. English was not one of the available languages. Fortunately, if you know your gauche from your droite, you should be able to cope.

Finally, special thanks must go to my friends Mark, for his organisational and driving skills, and to Tony, for his near-supernatural ability to liken almost any situation to an episode of the old TV show Only Fools and Horses.

See more of my photos from the Camargue and Arles on Flickr.

HC SVNT DRACONES

As beautiful as the Kent countryside and its surrounding coastline is, you know that wherever you go, you're never too far away from a road or a housing estate or an out-of-town shopping centre. It's still possible to get lost, but you can never get truly lost, and there are certainly no uncharted territories to speak of - the kind that medieval mapmakers used to populate with dragons and other mythical creatures. (Though if there were an uncharted region on the map of South East England, you can be sure that someone from the current government would try and put a runway on it.)

The thought of hundreds of shoppers dropping their bags and running in terror as a dragon wheels in the skies over the Westwood Cross is a strangely comforting one (well, to me at least), but in the absence of fire-breathing dragons, we have to make do with their insect counterparts. And judging by the number of dragonfly photos I've seen on Flickr recently, I think it's safe to say it's been a pretty good summer for dragonflies (and their damselfly cousins).

Over the last few months, at just one modest-sized pond in Canterbury, I've seen dragonflies of all different sizes and colours, including red ones:

...blue ones:

...yellow ones:

...and hawkers with colour schemes worthy of a Formula 1 car:

On reflection, perhaps it's just as well that the dragons' diminutive namesakes don't breath fire, as the above encounter might have burned the end of my telescope.