Le Teich Ornithological Reserve (2)

Bumblebee and teasel

Stork

Part of the land management includes grazing by cattle and, as here, sheep, to keep the undergrowth down

Juvenile Stilt

Still working on a definite ID, maybe a snipe?

Spotted redshank, summer plumage

Another end-of-term outing!

This is another spotted redshank, shot from one of the hides. It's not speeded up at all - it really did almost dance around at high speed just like this!!

Le Teich Ornithological Reserve (1)

For our last day, we had to choose between getting the train and visiting Bordeaux city, which is a heritage site and which I would still love to see, or spending the day at the nearby Le Teich Ornithological Reserve.  With C's knee still giving him trouble after the steep descents of Puy de Sancy, we thought the bird reservation would be the easier option. Perhaps it wasn't - we spent over four hours just walking around, but at least there were plenty of hides where we could sit down along the way.
I took a LOT of photos, so even though I have weeded them out considerably I think it's still going to take three posts. Feel free to skip or ignore them. For me, I think perhaps it was my favourite outing of our whole three weeks holiday; it was quiet, peaceful, tranquil. We would both love a chance to visit the reserve during migratory season, when it's meant to be full of all sorts of weird and wonderful birds. The one that we were likely to see and I was most disappointed that we didn't was the hoopoe. We saw plenty to make up for it, though...

First up to meet our eyes was a small stork colony. They are encouraged to nest by the provision of platforms with rudimentary nests to attract them, but are totally wild birds.

Wide open spaces and water. The reserve is part tidal saltmarsh, partly forested, and partly river

Stilt

Shelduck

Shelduck chcks, I'd never seen these before.

Egret at rest

A familiar sight in a different location!

Bassin d'Arcachon (5)

This is definitely the day we should have gone to the Dune de Pyla - it was cooler and somewhat overcast. But that made it quite pleasant for our boat trip round the bay - carefully chosen to depart as close as possible to high tide. The photos are far from the best, partly due to the haziness and partly due to the motion of the boat. We first went towards the île aux oiseaux (island of the birds) in the centre of the bay. Originally it was used as pasture for cattle and horses - but after severe storms in the eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries submerged the island and killed much of the livestock, it became used primarily for hunting and fishing. It had quite a lot of small buildings on it, used for leisure. The two most famous and picturesque are the "cabanes tchanquées" on their stilts. Both were built in the nineteen-fifties and one is still in the possession of the family of the original builder, the other is now owned by the state.
We then headed towards Cap Ferret peninsula and slowly sailed along it towards the tip. It was very interesting to see, from the sea, the other side of what we had seen from the road a couple of days previously - I think the restaurant with the "oyster tastings" sign was perhaps the same place as we had seen all the egrets. Unfortunately the amplification of the pilot's guided tour left a lot to be desired; his French was easy to understand but hard to hear.

Arcachon seafront

Whale fluke sculpture

Looking back towards one of the piers

Cap Ferret lighthouse

typical oyster-bed workboat

Life on the seafront

Floating dustbin

l'île aux oiseaux, cabanes tchanquées

l'île aux oiseaux

Bassin d'Arcachon (4)

With distinct lack of planning, we chose the hottest day of our holiday (the temperatures soared to 40°C (over 100°F) to go and visit the Dune de Pyla (or Pilate). This is the highest sand dune in Europe, measuring over 100 metres high and almost 3 kilometres in length. But in that heat, the sand was burning hot. We made an attempt to climb down the far side of it to the sea, but had to give up - we would have needed boots and socks. It was quite amazing, though...And we could smell the pine sap for quite a distance.
Afterwards, we went and spent the rest of the afternoon on a nearby beach.
This was the only day that I had problems with my catering arrangements - the butter melted in the cool box!

The next day was somewhat overcast and cooler, and is really the day we should have gone to the dune. Instead, we planned to take an afternoon trip around the bay. I must have walked into the town centre in the morning for some reason, because that's where the following photos were taken. For a centre that had no grocery shops, it had an abundance of estate agents, I think there were at least two more with less photogenic signs.
The little cow bell looks as if would have belonged more appropriately in the Auvergne.