Today we visited a bird reserve in the Camargue, Parc Ornithologique de Port de Gau. Thankfully, the forecast showers stayed away. However, although it was sunny and warm, it was incredibly windy. We’ve been blasted by dusty salty air all day and I feel very grubby and dishevelled. Poor Bertie is filthy too.
The bird reserve covers 148 acres of natural marshes, and the paths through it allow visitors to get close to the wetland birds. Immediately after leaving the entrance we came across flamingos, storks and egrets. There were thousands of flamingos snoozing or eating in the lagoons. When they took to air they were a stunning sight to behold with their huge black and pink wings.
By the time we’d finished the shorter 2.6 kilometre trail, we were flamingoed out and hoping to see some different birds!
We weren’t disappointed. The first hide on the longer, wilder 4.3 kilometre trail was brilliant. We stayed there for quite a long time, watching a stork, some herons and egrets, and various smaller wading birds.
We followed the paths and boardwalks around the lagoons, trying not to get blown in during the strongest gusts of wind!
There were even waves with white caps on the larger lagoon just outside the bird reserve! At least the wind kept most of the mosquitos away, although I did catch a couple trying to suck my blood.
We didn’t see many birds where the reserve was more open and there was less shelter. They were probably all hiding in the reeds. I don’t blame them!
The final hide on the trail was another good one, in a more sheltered spot. We saw avocets and what we think were redshanks, greenshanks, godwits, sandpipers and snipes.
It was wonderful watching them all, feeding in the mud. We eventually dragged ourselves away and finished the second trail.
We couldn’t resist another visit to the first hide though. There were flamingos here now, and the herons and stork we saw earlier hadn’t moved. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the reserve, which was well worth the 8 euro entrance fee. There were information boards all the way round to tell us what we could expect to see and help us identify the birds we did see.
Afterwards we had lunch in the car park and chatted to some British couples… 2 from Anglesey (one of whom had taught my friend Kathy and been on PE courses with John… small world!) and 2 in a Knaus van very similar to ours. Tonight we’d planned to stay in a France Passion site on a farm with bulls and horses but they didn’t have room for us. Instead, I checked for aires near Aigues Mortes and, reading the reviews, discovered that the expensive aire in the town that we’d decided against is currently free… result! We’re now parked up there and, although we’ve had a wander through the walled town and done a few geocaches, we’ll visit properly tomorrow. I’m looking forward to wandering around on the walls. I hope the wind drops or I might be blown off them!
Ramblings 
They really are incredible birds, those flamingoes! We have a salt pan between our city and the next one along the coast and see them there fairly regularly, and they are also pink, but on a local river just north of us, we see white ones…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting 😊 I learnt so much in the Camargue 😊
LikeLike