France - le fin

A dragonfly photo I missed out on earlier because it was the only photo from a walk in woodlands near Le Teich.

Le Teich reserve was our last day. We shopped for dinner on our way home, and after dinner, took down the big tent, set up the small one ready for a quick getaway the following morning, and packed up the car.
And then we decided to go and find the port that we were within metres of finding on our first night, le Port Des Tuiles. It was much less "developed" than Biganos, port, and the little cabins weren't as spruced up. But it was a lovely way to spend the last evening. The name comes from the fact that it was the port where tiles manufactured in Biganos were put on boats and distributed to all the ports around the bay, where the oyster growers used them as a substrate for growing the baby oysters.

We had a long drive ahead of us the next day - nearly 700 kilometres. We left in good time to fit in a supermarket shop in the town before Roscoff, and still had time for a short walk round the town of St. Pol-de-Léon to give our legs a good stretch after a day in the car.

One last bird...

Le Teich Ornithological Reserve (4)

A final few birds, some non-bird photos, the local "harbour"...

Little ringed plover

Distant lapwing

Lizard in the sun

I remember when we had our boat trip in the Marais Poitevin, the "ragondin" was one of the animals our guide mentioned as being an introduced species and somewhat of a pest. We saw some of their tracks, but didn't actually see any. This little one was grazing happily away near the birds. I think he looks very cute munching away, but they can do a lot of damage to the local ecosystem. His coat looks so shaggy, and he was so small, that I find it hard to see why they were farmed for fur.

Coypu. Nutria (myocastor coypus)

This was the local harbour near the reserve. As everywhere else in the bay, it was very tidal. You would certainly develop a great awareness of time and tide, I am sure. The first photo was taken when we walked to the beach to look at the swimming area and lie in the sun for a while after our long walk round the reserve. Even by the time we were walking back to the car, the tide was already rising.

Le Teich Ornithological Reserve (3)

United (Bird) Nations

Did you spot the bird of prey in the background of the previous picture? I think it's a buzzard

Crested Grebe

LBJ in hiding...

The next three photos are all the stilts. They are so elegant, I wish we had them here! The first time we saw them was at Lake Korission in Corfu. In the second photo, taken from behind, you can see how the legs really widen out below the knee. They start tapering in again a little towards the foot. They are related to the avocet, which we don't have here either.

??

Grazing shelduck

With the golden eye-ring, I'm sure this was a little ringed plover

And more unidentified birds - perhaps one might have been a wagtail of some sort...

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!