25th November 1988 - Golfe du Morbihan

The Golfe du Morbihan is basically a giant version of Pagham Harbour in Sussex ‑ some 15 km across inland and a one km opening at the sea end. Apart from a few islands, some inhabited, the area con­sists of vast mudflats, encroaching salt marsh and deep channels. At low tide the water empties out to leave vast wader and wildfowl feeding grounds; this is the principal French haunt of dark-bellied brent geese from Siberia ‑ some 20,000 over-winter here. The map showed several possible access points, and we chose the D780 on the western side.

bout two kilometres from the main road, the D780 runsan alongside the shore of the Golfe. We find a place to pull over and for the next two hours watch from the van. Jim uses the tele­scope for harriers and other distant birds, while I peer over his shoulder with binoculars at the nearby gulls and scribbled down notes of what we see as it happens.

There are shelduck, dark-bellied brents and gulls on the mudflats, plus a few coot. Further away are curlew, dunlin and redshank, and corm­orants fishing in the channel. A great black‑back gull close to the road is stabbing viciously at a flatfish; Jim reports two buzzards and two marsh harriers in the distance. The gull carries the flatfish around, puts it down and stabs it again, eventually getting a chunk off.

The harriers are showing well, the first one has a pale head and pale flashes on the primaries, the second is a fairly uniform rich brown with darker wing tips. An egret flies out of the channel but disappears down again before it can be ident­ified. A stonechat perches on a nearby fence post. Harrier I goes to ground, harrier II disappears downstream.

The egret reappears ‑ dark bill, dark legs, yellow feet ‑ and lands out of sight again. It is a little egret, although our books say it should have gone to southern Spain for the winter. About 150 avocets come in to roost. The great black‑back continues to struggle with its flat­fish, taking it down into a small channel for a wash then coming up onto the mud again. The fish is shaken vigorously and then stabbed again.

Two more little egrets put in brief appear­ances, two green sandpipers fly off into the distance and a heron lumbers past. The frustrated gull redirects his aggression at a nearby clump of spartina, then repeats the washing and stab­bing procedure. Harrier I takes to the air again. The gull finally swallows the fish whole, rather to the annoyance of a nearby first winter herring gull who then takes it out on a couple of nearby adult lesser black‑backs.

A third harrier appears ‑ more the classic female marsh harrier this time, with pale head and pale lesser secondary coverts, but with less ob­vious pale primary flashes. Harriers I and III came together briefly, flying in unison as they twist and swing through the sky, then one goes to ground. The swollen neck of the gull looks most uncomfort­able and he can stand it no longer. He regurg­itates the fish, washes it and gives it another good shake. Other gulls loiter nearby, but this one has no intention of giving up its meal.

Another ten minutes ‑ we have been here an hour ‑ and the gull swal­lows the fish again, going into all sorts of contortions as he tries to work it down. Jim finds a single miserable-look­ing avocet hiding behind a clump of spartina, it has oil on its plumage and is perhaps suffering from the effects of swal­lowing some while preening. Meanwhile harrier III soars and zooms around as if enjoying itself in the sun.

The gull seems to have recovered somewhat from its meal and struts off the way only great black­‑backs can. A common gull flies in to join a group of black‑headed gulls, all adults again. A fourth harrier appeares similar to the first but a duller, paler brown with dark flight feathers. Then another harrier ‑ a ringtail hen harrier this time, lighter built and with a paler, more chequered, underwing than the marsh harriers. It flies over the avocets and disappears upstream. Some avocets seemed confused and leave the group, flying in a circle before returning to roost again.

In the downstream direction a kestrel flies heavily low over the geese, getting a few of them worried. It lands on a hummock in the saltmarsh and begins plucking its prey ‑ Jim remarks that feathers were flying, unfortun­ately without their bird! A lapwing calls as it passes overhead. An egret flies along the channel, the low sun making its flight feathers look translucent. Small birds are coming and going in the hedge and scrub near the camper: robins, wrens, fieldfares, blue tits, chaffinches and greenfinches.

We drive on, using minor roads to keep close to the shore. Near the village of Hezoc a causeway has been built across a finger of the Golfe and trans­formed it into a reed‑fringed freshwater lake. Disappointingly there are only a handful of gulls in residence. However, there are small birds twitter­ing in the nearby shrubs and hedges so we look at those.

A tseep-tseep call comes from one hedge but locating the caller is not easy. When a bird does show it is against the light, we can make out a yellowish body and pink feet, but it defin­itely is not a yellowhammer. After a while we get better views of a female bunting sitting on a twig half way up the side of a hedge, looking back at us. She is a cirl bunting though we can't be sure of her identity until she flies away and shows off her olive rump. There are others around, they are mostly heard but not seen.

Watching was interrupted by an enthusiastic frenchman who tells us of a nearby place with thou­sands of birds. He is walking a dog and a small child, they don't go far along the road and on the way back he repeats his message but now tel­ling of two places.

The tide is still well out and the first place looks decidedly empty of both birds and water. The second place is much more hopeful and more access­ible. Signs proclaim it to be public maritime reserve with hunting forbidden at all times. The mudflats are crawling with dunlin ‑ thousands of them, with a handful each of knot, grey plover, redshank, curlew and godwit, and several hundred coot busily wading and poking about.

The edge of the rising tide is just coming into view, shooing the waders ahead and followed by hundreds of pintail, then a hundred or so shelduck, then about a hundred dark-bellied bren­ts. In amongst them are more coot plus a few teal and wigeon, more waders come in, including a few hundred grey plover. A little egret joins them, wading in an ungainly manner along a chan­nel. Most of the waders go towards a causeway which joins an island to the mainland. As the tide fills the bay the wildfowl form a neck­lace around the edge. Darkness falls before the tide is fully in.