29th November - Ile de Noirmoutier

The Ile de Noirmoutier is connected to the main­land via a toll bridge at its southern end, but there is also an old causeway across the southern part of the bay which is only passable for a short time at low tide. Information about tide times is prominently displayed in the village of Beauvoir sur Mer as well as at each end of the causeway, and instructions are provided in English and Ger­man as well as French. We arrived at 10 am only to find that low tide was at 3 pm.
It had been raining all morning, but rather than miss the area completely we decided to park at the end of the causeway and watch through the drizzle. As the tide fell, exposing sandy mud­flats and salt­marsh, birds started to return from their high tide roosts: a few dozen brent geese, a var­iety of waders, duck, grebes, gulls etc. When the rain did stop, Jim found an adult medi­ter­ranean gull. We went for a short walk along the sea wall and found a first winter mediter­ranean gull ‑ just shows they do really exist. There were also pipits, wagtails and larks along the shore.
A few vehicles had gone out onto the cause­way but they were for servicing the shellfish farms alongside it and near the shore. At about one o'clock someone came through quite fast, onto the causeway past everything else and kept going, sending up white spray so we could follow its progress. He got across, but even though the water was shallow the salt can't have done the vehicle much good. At about 1.20 pm other vehicles arrived and crossed at a more sensible speed; we followed more slowly. You are not allowed to stop on the causeway and there is nowhere to pull off to the side.

It was raining again as we drove north on the Ile de Noirmoutier to the fishing village of l'Her­boutiere which is said to be good for sea watching in the right conditions. We had just found a parking place between the harbour and a (closed) campsite when a half dozen larks flew onto the rough grass and sand track in front of us. I took a second look at them because one appeared to have white on its wing, though this proved to be just feather blown out of place in the wind. But what sort of larks were they? Their short tails were reminiscent of woodlark but they had more noticeable crests.
Consultation with the field‑guide indicated they were, indeed, crested larks. Unfortunately someone came through with a bike and the birds left. We saw them a couple of times later but only for brief views, they were very intolerant of both humans and the local sparrowhawk.
When the rain had eased off again we walked along the coast. Amongst the trees providing shelter for the campsite we found chiff‑chaffs, robins, blackbirds and serins. The low cliffs were formed from a very soft sand and shingle conglomerate and were very eroded in places. Below them the low tide exposed a rocky shore of seaweed covered rocks. There were gulls, corm­orants and turnstones on the rocks, and a black-throated diver feeding in the water between. The diver spent most of the time swimming with just its head underwater, diving only when it saw some­thing worth diving for. Divers prey on fish and crustaceans, small items being swallowed under­water while large or spiny fish and crabs are brought to the surface and mutilated before being swallowed.
In the late afternoon fishing boats were return­ing to l'Herboutiere harbour each with an entourage of gulls; they were mostly herring and black-headed gulls in the harbour itself and a single little gull amongst those following boats still out at sea. Rock pipits and black red­starts hunted along the sea wall.