Birding in France, Part 2 - Boudrac and Puydarrieux

Here's a familiar bird, the good ol' Barn Swallow. No matter how often we drove through a group of Barn Swallows in France, we kept getting our hopes up for something different - we couldn't wrap our heads around the European population being so damn white underneath! Also notice how much more pronounced the breast band is than on an American Barn Swallow. We wouldn't see another swallow species until we arrived in the Pyrenees, but that didn't stop me replaying Monty Python and the Holy Grail over and over in my head.

(Eurasian) Barn Swallow

Is it just me, or does this swallow look like it's whistling?

Maureen's Aunt and Uncle have a beautiful, lush yard with lots of lovely botanical and horticultural projects that attract birds and other pollinators. Even with persistent rains our first day in Boudrac, it was active nearly the entire time. We tallied Blackcaps, Blue Tits, Great Tits, and Chaffinches without any trouble. We struggled to turn some uncooperative birds into Greenfinches or Siskins, but the sky was too overcast and our lenses too dappled with rain for confident IDs.

Blue Tit

Even the butterflies didn't let the rain keep them down. I always struggle with blues - one of these is a Polyommatus sp., and the other remains a mystery. Another garden species, Map, is a sharp-looking fella. The bottom lep is a rare look at a perched Hummingbird Hawk-moth - a common garden visitor that we saw frequently, but usually hovering and feeding like its namesake.

Polyommatus sp.

Unidentified blue

Long-tailed Blue

Map

Hummingbird Hawk-moth

Meanwhile, with all the excitement of being swarmed by lifers, we shrugged off the magpies to our later chagrin. I'd mistakenly thought these were the same as "our" magpies, thanks to iBird, which lists the scientific name for Black-billed Magpie as Pica pica, instead of Pica hudsonia. Bah! Oh well, it's still an armchair tick of sorts.

Unfortunately, our best look at a Willow Warbler

Red-veined Darter

We met with a friend of the family who had a sign for the Ligue pour la Protectio des Oiseaux (LPO) in his yard. He had banned hunting on his property and boasted how he's been ostracized from the townspeople in consequence. The sign featured a European Robin, coincidentally, not far from one of the best-showing Robins we found all trip, and posed in exact mirror image to the sign.

European Robin

Both nights we spent in Boudrac we were serenaded by a Tawny Owl at 4:30 in the morning. If something absolutely insists on waking me up at 4:30, it's best if that something is a lifer. Tawny was our only owl of the trip, but we started getting good looks at some diurnal raptors a few hours later, starting with Common Buzzard (a Buteo, like Red-tailed Hawk), and followed by a flyover Honey Buzzard (which is not a Buteo).

Common Buzzard

Honey Buzzard

The next day we had to pack up and head to the mountains, but first we took a quick trip out to Réservoir de Magnoac to pick up some water birds. Right off the bat, among the Great and Cattle Egrets -- a Little Egret! All over the surface of the reservoir in one and twos were a few dozen Great Crested Grebes, and the shores were lined with Common Sandpipers and Northern Lapwings.

Great and Little Egrets

Little Egret

Great Crested Grebes

Northern Lapwings

We were in the midst of a Euro bonanza. As we hiked closer to the water for better views, we had our introductory looks at White Wagtail, which would be one of the most common birds of our trip.

Flying out of a tree -- not where I would have expected to find a White Wagtail

On our way back to the car, we stopped to admire some more butterflies, including Painted Lady -- the same Painted Lady that's found all throughout the United States and Canada.

Painted Lady

Clouded Yellow sp.

Speckled Wood

Meadow Brown sp.

One last stop brought us to Lac de Puydarrieux. We expected we'd see pretty much the same stuff as at the reservoir, and for the most part we were right, except this time the nearly two dozen lapwings were mixed in with with three dozen Eurasian Curlews! But we were really in for a treat once we spotted three terns - an adult and two juveniles - flying around and plunge-diving. They were clearly Chlidonias terns of some kind, but based on range and time of year, I hadn't really counted on seeing any. It was a while before they came closer and the dark gray underparts proved they were Whiskered Terns. Really an awesome surprise.

Great Cormorants

adult Whiskered Tern

juvenile Whiskered Tern

Stay tuned for some genuine bucket-list birds in our next post!

"Heeey Yooouuu Guuuuuuys!" - Birding in the Footsteps of the Goonies

In July we took our first trip to the Goondocks, where we'd follow in the famous footsteps of Chester Copperpot (Goonies), Det. John Kimble (Kindergarten Cop), Johnny Utah (Point Break), and Johnny 5 (Short Circuit) -- (why so many Johns?). Believe it or not, there's actually more to do in Astoria than visiting the sets of '80s movies.

We camped at Fort Stevens State Park, which was loaded with historical artifacts like a WWII battery, and the 110-year old remains of the Peter Iredale shipwreck. It's also got some pretty righteous birding opportunities. We started our morning by heading over to South Jetty, hoping to wrack up shorebirds and gulls. Auspiciously, an Elk walked across the road ahead of us on the drive over, and when we pulled into the jetty, three bull Elk feeding along the edge of the parking lot. We were no longer thinking about gulls.

An elusive Two-headed Elk!

The Elk casually grazed and paid us little attention, other than occasionally looking in our direction. We only had our first, brief, Elk encounter earlier this year, and had hoped we'd get a chance to see and enjoy them like this. Eventually we went up the observation tower that looks out over the jetty. We couldn't find much out to sea, we did see a gull harassing a Common Murre that somehow found it's way on shore. It wasn't a great sight, so here are more Elk shots instead.

On the observation tower itself, Barn Swallows had built several nests, and were periodically returning to feed their little ones, nestled right up against the stairs.

Barn Swallow

Over at the insipidly-named Parking Lot D, Caspian Terns flew past with some regularity. We counted ourselves fortunate when a handful swooped and dove not far off from us, along the river. After several minutes, we crossed the parking lot and walked a short path and found ourselves surrounded by that tearing call of theirs. Spread out over the mudflats where close to 50 terns along with a good number of Semipalmated Plovers and some peeps.

Caspian Tern

The conventional wisdom is that if you want to see Tufted Puffins, you go to Haystack Rock. Since we've found puffins at other spots along the coast we didn't think about it too much. Our mistake for being so dismissive. As soon as we set up the scope, we were staring at groups of 3 or 4 puffins at a time, and close. Occasionally one would dive off its ledge and circle over our heads before heading out to sea. If you want to see Tufted Puffins, you go to Haystack Rock. Got it.

Tufted Puffin and Common Murres. You can see a nesting burrow center-left

Diving off Haystack Rock

The puffins were joined on Haystack by countless other seabirds, mostly cormorants and gulls, but also decent numbers of Pigeon Guillemots. A male Harlequin Duck came in closer than I'm used to, and I almost got stranded taking snapping photos as the tide kept creeping in around me.

Haystack Rock

Pigeon Guillemots

Harlequin Duck

At low tide, this is a good spot for tide-pooling, and several volunteer naturalists were showing off the anemones and keeping people from climbing where they aren't supposed to.

Anemone

I'd wanted to swing by Del Rey Beach after checking out eBird reports, but it was pretty quiet when we got there. But we did pick up a lifer moth in the parking lot, where Red-shouldered Ctenuchas had swarmed all over the ragwort and the dune tansy. We pushed onward to Ft. Clatsop to visit a recreation of Lewis and Clark's winter camp (1805-6) and picked out some Red Crossbills kip-kip-kipping high overhead. I guess we lucked out -- of all the animals Meriwether Lewis described along their journey, Red Crossbill wasn't one of them.

Red-shouldered Ctenuchas

We started the next day back at South Jetty, but only saw one Elk this time. We took the trail that leads to the beach and came across hundreds of Heermann's Gulls congregating on a sandbar. Farther off was a massive mixed flock in the midst of a feeding frenzy. Assorted pelicans, cormorants, gulls, and terns were gathering up whatever they could find, and there must have been plenty of it, whatever it was. On the way out, an Elk family crossed the road just ahead of us, and we got our fist glimpse of an Elk baby!

Heermann's Gulls

Baby Elk!!

We'd heard that Seaside Cove was worth checking out, and it was indeed. Right along the shore were several adult and first-summer Heermann's Gulls -- the closest we've managed to get to these handsome larids. The water was relatively calm, and we were able to pick out a lone Marbled Murrelet and a good 80 or so Western Grebes.

Heermann's Gull

While we were there some guy asked us if we'd seen any Harbor Seals or sea lions anywhere at Seaside Cove (we hadn't). Then he asked if we'd seen the Walruses back in Astoria. He obviously knew the difference between seals and sea lions, so I wanted to believe he knew what he was talking about while also remaining cautiously skeptical. PRO TIP: there are no Walruses in Oregon. But we were heading into town anyway, and there might have been something good -- Maureen suspects he meant Elephant Seals, which would have been great, but instead there was nothing.

Great Blue Heron