The previous day, we had just arrived in Villefranche-sur-Mer, a fairly small, but touristic town, on the Mediterranean coast. We had just left from Basel, a veritable city in northern Switzerland, and now we were in a small rustic town by the sea. This was quite a change, and on several levels. The weather was nicer, the view was extremely different, and the habitat and birdlife was completely unlike that of Switzerland. Although much of the area was developed, and most of the native habitat had been destroyed, some tracts of pine and conifer forest, and steep coastal chaparral were still around. It was in this sort of habitat that I was going to bird on my first day in the Côte-d'Azur, on Mount Boron, just outside of Nice.
Once I stepped outside of the car, I realized how different this environment was from the surrounding environs. It was an actual preserved stretch of habitat, where there were indicated trails and signs asking people to respect the habitat and remain on the trail. This comforted me, because I was worried that all of the Cote-d'Azur was urbanized and that the only remnants of native habitat were a bush and a conifer tree in someone's backyard.
The first birds I noticed were a single Common Chaffinch foraging on the ground and two Eurasian Magpies squabbling in the back of the parking lot. One thing that bummed me out at first was the dearth of bird calls and songs. I could hear several tits of unknown species deep in the habitat but it was silent otherwise. We began walking down the trail, in hopes of hearing some more birdlife. Suddenly, I began hearing this rapid and consistent buzzing. I knew exactly what this bird was: a Sardinian Warbler. This black-headed and red eye-ringed species is found in this dry and coastal chaparral habitat throughout much of the western Mediterranean coast. I quickly learned that this resident species was abundant when in the right habitat. But before I began hearing more of these birds, I was focused on this individual, hoping it would cooperate and show itself. Fortunately for me, it did and I even managed to put the scope on it, which gave me a fantastic view of the species. However, I learned that this was going to be my best view of this species during my trip.
The bird then flew off and we moved on. As we turned around, I got a quick view of a Green Woodpecker fly from a tree. This is a species that I first saw when I was in the Black Forest in Germany. A splendid species of woodpecker, my lifer was an adult male, so I got to see the red on its nape and the crisp granny-smith green on the rest of its body. The bird that we flushed was a juvenile because it lacked the red nape and I noticed a lot of speckling on its face. A few Firecrests began peeping at each other, and a Eurasian Blue Tit joined the quarrel.
We continued down the trail and we came across a large mixed flock, mostly composed of tits but there were a few chaffinches mixed in. The tits were all either Great or Eurasian Blue. But after more scrutinization, I discovered there was a third tit species, a species that had evaded me thus far. Right above me were two Crested Tits, a pert species that I really wanted to see. Named after its gray crest with black stripes, I was impressed at how egregious and salient they were. I knew they would be visible, but not to that extent.
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| Crested Tit (notice the black throat and the obvious crest) |
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| Great Tit (notice the black head and white cheek, the yellow underparts, and the black stripe down the middle) |
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| Eurasian Blue Tit (notice the white face, yellowish underparts, and the blue on the back of the head) |
Once the mixed flock passed, we continued down the trail. We noticed how the bird activity had really slowed down, with the only bird we were hearing was a Eurasian Blackbird. I then began noticing these medium-sized yellow butterflies. They were really pretty, so I was then determined to get a shot of one of them. Fortunately for me, two of them landed right beside me, and allowed me to get remarkably close to them. Once I got home, I looked up European butterflies and discovered that they were called Cleopatras.
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| Cleopatras |
Then, this smaller, more cryptically colored butterfly landed nearby. This individual wasn't quite as cooperative, but I did manage to snap a quick shot of it. This species is called a Wall Brown.
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| Wall Brown |
This concludes my day of birding, as well as my weekend of birding. There weren't any good places to go birding in this area, so we spent the weekend with our family that we don't see all that often. The next time I was going to be birding, I will be in the renowned Camargue National Reserve.
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