New Year Trip to the foothills of the Pyrenees and the Gard
Why Blog?
Before I detail my observations from this trip, I think it would be best to elaborate on why I wanted to start this blog. I have several reasons, which I will list shortly, but thought that I should shout out Thomas Miller’s post about winter geese on his Birding Blog - posted in late December – which kick-started this endeavour. I was always under the impression that blog-writing (or, alternatively vlogging) was something of an egotistical pursuit, and the resulting blogs were frequently dry, but in reading Thomas’s last entry, such fears were dispelled.
Thomas’s recent blog post: https://tmbirding.blogspot.com/2025/12/patch-geese.html
My own reasons for beginning this blog are also assumptions about what the process of writing this often will do for me. Firstly, I’m hoping that this blog may help improve my quality of writing. This year I have been writing a lot of job applications, and I have often found myself struggling to find the correct word to use or writing in peculiar structures. In writing this blog regularly I hope to practice often enough that the process of writing becomes at least a little easier.
I’m also hopeful that writing this blog may help develop my birding skills. I’ve been actively trying to improve my audio identification for the past year, with limited success, and I still feel like my fieldcraft and visual ID require some polishing. In writing long-form pieces about the birds I have seen after the fact, I imagine that most aspects of the hobby will be consolidated in the same way that they say you should revise things the week after you have learned them, strengthening the neural connections or something like that…
I have recently re-started my YouTube channel, something which I am keen to continue. While writing and filming my first video I was reminded of the fact that the medium of video doesn’t allow for a particularly in-depth discussion of any topic unless you make an exceedingly long video (45 minutes plus). I also dislike vlogging – as previously alluded to – as I generally like more structured videos and feel like the more exploratory trips I make are much better served in writing.
All in all, I think it would be a good idea, and it wouldn’t hurt to at least try, so I have decided to begin with my trip to visit my partner’s family in the south of France. The novelty of these trips is yet to be lost on me and there are still so many new places and things to see. I am fortunate enough to have a partner who tolerates birdwatching on these trips, but they are primarily to visit family so I try my best not to overstep any boundaries. There has been one main stumbling block on these trips so far: the language. I didn’t learn French at school so have struggled to communicate when we go outside of the family unit (the family are half English and usually speak in English at home). In an attempt to begin to rectify this language gulf, I will refer to all the birds in this account by their French names. Baby steps I know but, like this blog post, you have to start somewhere.
P.S. I should add that I will also be capitalising all bird names in French having read the brilliant blog post by the incomparable Graeme Lyons linked here: https://analternativenaturalhistoryofsussex.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-english-names-of-species-should.html
The Trip
The trip was divided into two parts: the foothills of the Pyrenees near Perpignan, and the border between Herault and the Gard. Before travelling I did some research to see what I wanted to focus on birding-wise in each location. The area we would be staying in the Pyrenees is at the far east of the range, where they meet the sea, so the mountains aren’t quite alpine. This means that the assemblage of birds is not quite as specialist as you would hope, but there was still one target that stood out: the Pic Noir. This bird has proved tricky on previous visits to France. I looked for it briefly while filming a project for my master’s course, high in the Pyrenees, to no avail. I also made a less promising attempt earlier in December, when in Paris with a friend. But it now looked as if this charismatic bird may finally give itself up.
The village we were staying in is at the foot of a mountain called Albères. This mountain’s peak lies on the border with Spain, but a short way down the mountain, on the French side, is a small belt of pine and beech – favourites of the Pic Noir. A check on eBird confirmed a hotspot within the pine belt with several sightings, an easy tick – or so I thought; this hunt would prove to be far trickier than I had anticipated.
The journey to the Pyrenees from London on the 28th was pleasant, if a little tedious. My partner and I had booked late, so missed Eurostar tickets, and had to get the ferry across to Calais, before taking regional trains to Paris and connecting onto a high-speed line down south. A few Plongeons Catmarins were the highlight of the ferry ride, with most of the rest of the first day’s train journey completed in winter darkness. We woke on the 29th in the coastal town of Sète, near Montpellier, where a walk into town for food delivered a smattering of Rougequeues Noirs. Having had breakfast we boarded a connecting train further south on which we were treated to views of vast inland lagoons, locally called etangs, which were dusted with flocks of wintering Flamants.
We arrived in the town of Argelès-sur-Mer in the early afternoon, from where we were driven by my partner’s grandfather to his house in the mountain village of Domaines des Albères. The village is picturesque consisting of a few houses cut into the hillside at the foot of Albères mountain. From this point onwards I will usually use we as the pronoun of choice, to describe myself and my partner, who joined me on every little expedition, unless I explicitly say otherwise.
Domaines des Albères – Pic Noir and Cochevis Huppé
After getting settled we decided to take a short walk up the main road which leads up from the village into a network of footpaths around the mountain. There weren’t too many birds out and about, as time had somewhat got away from us, and the sun had begun to set. The winter sun only shone on the house in the Pyrenees for ~5 hours a day, as the mountains behind us blocked a clear view of the sun. The birds that were about that evening were Pinsons des Arbres. Roughly 50 birds flew over our heads, making for a small glade of beech on the mountain slope above us, where I suspected they would soon be settling down to roost.
The majority of vegetation around the village consisted of small evergreen oaks, with a few oak and chestnut mixed in. These were favourites of Mésanges and Roitelets Triple-bandeaux, and a few were seen on the late walk that first day. As the sun set fully, we returned to the house for dinner and bed.
The next morning, we set about planning some birding. The morning of the 31st seemed good weather for an attempt to look for Pic Noir, so we planned to head to the eBird hotspot, near the summit of the mountain, then. There was also a site for Cochevis Huppé, another species I haven’t seen, 30 minutes’ drive away, which we thought would fit into the morning of the 1st quite nicely. The weather was sunny, and would stay that way for the whole trip, so that would prove no hindrance. We decided to try and get a good understanding of the local birdlife that morning, to prepare for the long walk the following day. So, my partner and I left the house before the sun had reached us and began a walk up the hill.
Before we could leave, we had the first new bird for the trip, a Mésange Huppée perched in the tree outside the room where I was sleeping. These birds were common here, as they are for much of France, and were seen or heard on all other walks around the Domaine. It wasn’t long before we stumbled across some other new birds for the trip. A Bruant Zizi was singing down in the valley to the side of the village. A rare bird in the UK, these lovely buntings are quite common in that part of the world. I also spotted a female-type Fauvette Mélanocéphale in the shrubbery of one of the gardens, slightly further up the path.
The sun’s rays had begun to light the mountain tops as we passed a small water tank and the path shifted from being suitable for vehicles to a thin footpath beneath a thick canopy of evergreen oak. The ground along the side of the path had been disturbed by boar overnight, and as Roitelet Triple-bandeaus called in the trees around us, we began to climb quite steeply. This was the path we would be taking the next day, and as we reached a couple of rocks, we decided that we’d save the big climbs for then and turned back.
On the way up I had noticed a small hole in a deciduous trunk, coated in ivy, which I thought was a suitable size for a Pic Épeiche nest. As we passed it on the way down, I was delighted to hear my proposed nest inhabitant calling loudly, and I saw a male perched at the top of a tree just above the path. It wasn’t the only tree specialist seen on the return to the house; a flock of 5 of Grimpereaux des Jardins flitted through a garden on the final stretch before the house, chittering to each other. The French name for these birds translates to garden treecreeper, which makes sense given you see them in gardens much more regularly than our long-toed British birds.
We went on a few more short walks that day, but we didn’t see any more new species, and as darkness fell, my thoughts turned to the mountain, and the small pine belt where I hoped to find my prized Pic Noir.
Fig.4. The view of Pic d’Orella from the ground, you can see some pines in the far right near the peak
We rose early, and started for the mountain, carrying only food, water, and optics. The path taken the day before passed without incident until we reached the water tank and saw a parked 4x4 pick-up containing two open cages. The sound of baying dogs deep in the woods confirmed the worst, it was a hunting day.
These woods are popular with hunters, who are usually out for boar in this part of the world. It is claimed that the boar are overpopulous, and the hunting keeps numbers down. While I doubt this, and would happily suggest alternatives, at that moment our main concern was staying safe in the woods when a fair few French men with guns and dogs were between us and the summit.
I was thankful that my partner was experienced with this hurdle, and she recommended that we made loud conversation as we walked to inform the hunters of our presence. And it wasn’t long before we saw one, barely 50 metres along the path. He stood stock still in the early morning gloom, gun loosely at his side, and nodded at us as we passed.
Soon we reached the rocks we had turned around at the day before where the path split, one route turning left, up the hill, and the other right, along the slope. We took the left one, having stopped to catch our breath, and began the climb. The ground was loose, consisting of dry mud and scree, and the path went up nearly vertically for the first few hundred metres. We had to move from tree to tree, pulling ourselves up by branches and twigs. Above us lay a ridge which appeared (on maps at least) to host a footpath that directly led all the way to the summit of Pic d’Orella. But as we came to the ridgeline, there was no path to be seen, and to make matters worse, the baying of dogs, which had initially only been heard far below us, was getting worryingly loud.
We raised our voices as we discussed our next move, and decided to attempt to pierce through some thick undergrowth just over the ridge, in the hopes of potentially finding this invisible path. The hounds came closer again, just as our bodies disappeared amongst the foliage, obscuring our human outline, and reducing us to rustles in the undergrowth. I became snagged several times on low lying twigs, but my partner had supposedly found a way through on the other side, so I attempted to persevere. I ducked and dived a little more until I came to a clearing where we looked around, there appeared to be a path ahead. This path did not last long, but thankfully for our hopes of progress, the noise of the dogs began to subside, and we were able to begin to navigate free of fear for the first time in a while.
It was evident that the path wasn’t on this side of the ridge, so, with some effort, we climbed over it, and down onto the other side, where a path was clearly marked. It must have been on the other side all along, but the hunting party had sent us into such a panic that we hadn’t spent the time to look for it. We followed it upwards, first along mud tracks between the evergreen oaks, before they gave way to chestnuts and beech. The going got steep, and at one point we were practically climbing what had become muddy scree once more, but eventually, thankfully, we reached a well-marked path, and the tree cover opened up.
At a viewpoint a few hundred metres up we could see the distance that we had travelled, the village of Domaines des Albères lay far below us, and above us we could begin to see the pine belt coming into view. A few hundred metres later we reached a road, where we stopped to eat some of the snacks we had prepared, and get the optical gear out, as across the road the pines began in earnest, and it wasn’t long until the first exciting bit of wildlife of the day came into view.
20 metres to the right of the path a wild boar bolted into the undergrowth as I came around a rock. Thankfully we were far above the altitude where the hunt had been taking place. That was my first boar ever, and only one of the trip, but the hunting of boar will rear its ugly head later on.
As we reached the pines I began to listen for any drumming. A thin layer of frost covered the ground, and small patches of snow began to appear as the pine belt weaved its way up the hillside. Mésanges Huppées and Grimpereaux hopped between the mighty pine trunks. I was watching some Sittelles Torchepots flick about when I heard my first drumming. It was quite quiet, and a look in some smaller pines to the left of the path revealed a Pic Épeiche. A little further up we saw a red squirrel, resting on a branch, and a pair of Mésanges Nonnettes, sneezing as they chased each other through the frosty undergrowth. We found little else of note in this first pine belt, and as we reached Pic d’Orella, we had seen no Pic Noir.
Fig.7. The walk from Pic d’Orella
(red circle) to the chalet (Blue eBird hotspot) to the border (red line)
The eBird hotspot was a mile or so to the southeast at a chalet for climbers. The chalet was only a short walk from the border with Spain, and we decided that we would like to see if we could make it across the border before we returned in the afternoon. A check of the watch revealed it was already 11:30 however, and we wouldn’t have long to make it up there from the chalet.
Sadly, the next two hours was not particularly eventful. We made it the chalet having only added two ravens to the day’s list, had lunch, and made the border in time. The view down into Spain was worth the extra walk, and you could see up the path to the summit of Albères, but the time was against us, and we had to head back.
Despite the wonderful view, I was feeling quite disparate. We still hadn’t seen a Pic Noir, despite being in perfect habitat, and at an eBird hotspot, so I decided to quickly research if I had made some kind of error in my planning.
A search of “Black Woodpecker seasonal” revealed the sad truth. If you already know this, and have been waiting for my grim realisation, well good for you, I hope you’re happy. During the spring and summer, Pic Noir call frequently and hold small territories in these pine and beech woodlands, but in winter they change their behaviour significantly – ranging over huge areas of forest, foraging for food. I assume it is due to their food source of ants being much scarcer in the winter, but either way, this discovery made my devastation a little easier to bear.
The return to the village was smooth, we discovered that a logging track which left the chalet was the road we had passed just before seeing the wild boar late that morning, so made it swiftly to there, and were down the mountain before the sun had fully disappeared from the valley below.
I suppose the lesson here is always check the date your eBird record is from and have a look at the eBird/Merlin timeline that both apps so usefully provide. I was bearing this in mind as I planned the next day’s New Years birding. I hoped to get a lifer to make up for the Pic No show and had set my sights on Cochevis Huppés. There was a site for these only 30 minutes away, on an etang, in and around a small fishing village. I checked the timeline, and they should be there in January. Surely a dip couldn’t happen again.
Fig.10. It could indeed happen
again
It was a late start, given how late the festivities the night before had finished, and it was about 9am when I saw my first bird of the year - a Mésange Huppée - from my window. We arrived about an hour later, at what turned out to be quite a peculiar place.
The road which we arrived on was situated on the thin stretch of dune-y land between the etang and the sea. On the etang side lay a small group of fishing huts constructed using traditional materials, hay and reeds and the like. Having parked and wandered into the village itself we were immediately greeted by a stonker new year’s bird – Flamant Rose! A flock of 12 or so birds were sheltering on the far side of the etang but were fairly easy to see. There were also plenty of Sternes Caugeks, and a single Cygne Noir which flew past the village a little later, part of a local feral population.
The birds on the land didn’t disappoint either: I finally got a lifer in the form of Serin Cini – a pair landing briefly in a bush in front of me. There was a decently large fenced off area of coastal scrubland between the etang and the coast road which we had arrived on, in which I found a Fauvette Pitchou – a species I had become familiar with last year during a research assistant job on the Surrey Heaths (and brilliantly onomatopoeically named in French) – and two Huppes fasciées.
These Huppes fasciées, along with a trio of Bruant Zizi, showed nicely later on in the village, and with a sighting of a couple Cisticole des Joncs, the morning’s birding was over. No Cochevis Huppé for me, although I did see an Alouette in flight over the scrub, which in retrospect I think was probably a Cochevis, however I was not confident enough to say that at the time.
I birded a little more that day, ensuring that I would have all of the local birds to the Domaines on my year list, as that evening we travelled from the Pyrenees to the other end of the Occitanie region – a small village called Brouzet-lès-Quissac.
Brouzet-lès-Quissac – Tichodrome Échelette
My planning for this leg of the trip had begun on my last visit to my partner’s house, when we visited some local cliff-faces in the hope of seeing a Tichodrome Échelette. I had made a similar mistake to the one I made with the pic noir this time and decided to look in a season where the bird was impossible to see. Tichodromes Échelettes are seasonal altitudinal migrants, spending summer at high altitudes in the Pyrenees and Alps, before moving to lower climes when the snow and ice of alpine winter covers their resident rockfaces.
In recent years they have taken to wintering on man-made constructions which resemble their preferred habitat of lots of flat rock such as large buildings – and there were a few of these in the area, notably the impressive Pont du Gard – a Roman aqueduct from the 1st century AD – but there was a lesser known location on a natural rockface that was our spot of choice.
That was not the first bit of birding we would be doing however, as on the 2nd we decided to have a late start and wander around the local area. It was a fruitful walk, seeing several Pics Verts, more Serin Cini, and a wintering flock of Alouette Lulu, making up for my lack of Alouettes at the fishing village. Having returned to the house we made plans to head to the local cliff-face early next morning and stay there until early afternoon.
The cliff was one side of a hill called Montagne d’Hortus, and the specific eBird hotspot where the Tichodrome Échelette had been reported was at a site called Grotte de l’Hortus at the base of the hill (Grotte being the French for cave).
Fig.11. The Montagne d'Hortus
It was only a 25-minute drive to the parking at d'Hortus, but as we left the car to begin the short hike up to the foot of the cliff, we were greeted by a quite literal unfortunate sign. Strapped to a tree at the entrance to the main path it depicted boar running, and a bunch of text in French that I couldn’t make out – but my partner confirmed my suspicion, that the hunters were back.
We made our way up the track that mirrored the shape of the cliff-face, which had begun to rise to our left, through a dense forest of evergreen oak. There was once again a supreme din of dogs, hidden away in the woods somewhere to our right, but they were much further away than they had been in the Pyrenees, so we paid them less mind. It wasn’t long before we saw a new bird for the trip, and one I had been looking forward to seeing here – Hirondelles des Rochers. There was a small colony of them here on the cliff, and they were enjoying the insects that lit the early morning air up. It had been frosty as we had left, but the sun was now out, and we were in the throes of a terrifically balmy January day.
After 20-odd minutes of walking we reached an opening in the woodland to our left, which provided an excellent view of most of the cliff-face, albeit at quite a distance. We thought that this may be the viewpoint where other birders had viewed from, so we settled in to have a scan.
It became apparent very quickly that we were going to have very achy necks the next morning, craning your neck up consistently to scan a cliff-face takes a lot of effort, and 10-minutes in I was trying to innovate a way of supporting my weak head-holder. I found a fairly effective way of wedging myself onto a tree trunk on the opposite side of the road, which kept me going for another 30 minutes, at which point I saw the first exciting bird of the trip – a male Merle Bleu. It dipped down from its perch upon a rock, and out of sight, no sooner than I had seen it. My partner was unable to get on it, and I realised how tough it was going to be to get both of us on anything given the homogeneity of the rockface, so we began to create a sort-of map of the rock.
Having done that I wandered along the path a little further to scout out any other potential viewpoints that might be a little closer. I found a hunter’s car and a path which appeared to lead up to the Grotte itself.
We decided to make our way up the path, which ended up being a lot steeper than anticipated, once again consisting of scree and dirt - a flashback to a few days earlier. After a while we came to a rocky clearing and saw that we had come much closer to the cliff-face, so much so that we were nearly underneath it. I pushed on alone, and found that we had come to the base of the cliff, where the cave the eBird hotspot was named after was located. The problem now was that we had to crane our necks even more to get a good view of any potential cliff dweller, and the total area of cliff visible was much much smaller than it had been below. I followed the cliff along a short distance, no more than 50 metres, where I found the footpath which was now tracking along the base of the cliff pulled out from the base a little. Here it formed a little platform of rock, that was a perfect place to view a decent proportion of the rockface above.
I climbed back to where I had left my partner, and we moved to the new spot. Here we innovated another new cliff-watching method, lying flat on your back and scanning upwards. While it provided ample support on the neck front, it wasn’t proving very fruitful for birding. A few birds of prey did appear though, with a Faucon Pèlerin and an Épervier tracing the upper-line of the cliff.
Below us the noise of the dogs had begun to grow much louder, and they were barking much more frequently than before. Soon the baying became peppered with gunshots. These echoed off the walls of the l’Hortus cliff in front of us, and spun around the valley we were in. I can’t imagine all this noise was doing our chances any favours, and was thankful when, after an hour or two of lying at the base of the cliff, they ceased.
At this point we got some of the snacks we had brought out of our supply bag, and began eating. I had also decided to play the song Creep by Radiohead from my phone, in some vain attempt to draw the Tichodrome Échelettes out. 5 minutes after the song had finished I was discussing the contents of the nougat we were eating when I saw something small and black flick by us on the cliff above, and around the corner of a bit of rock, just out of view. I thought nothing of it at first, but having done a bit of a double take I realised that it had been flying a bit like an Huppe Fasciée – an identifying feature of the Tichodrome Échelette I had read about the day before.
I wasn’t entirely convinced, but was hopeful enough to check it out, so I jogged back along the path, carrying only my bins to where the bird had flown to. As I got to the bit of the path which split off below the mountain I looked up and saw the area of rock where the bird had disappeared. For 10 seconds there was nothing, and then a small black bird flicked out from somewhere unseen and into view. The movements were unusual, and having raised my bins to the bird, my hopes were confirmed – what had appeared black to the naked eye was a beautiful mix of grey, red, white, and black – a Tichodrome Échelette was sat there, maybe 30 metres from where I stood.
My heart began to pound in my chest as I realised I didn’t have either my partner or my camera with me, and I turned and sprinted back to our little campsite. I have never run uphill that quickly, and as I got within earshot I yelled “It’s here, it’s a wallcreeper!”. She came running with her camera and mine and having grabbed my camera we were soon back to where I had been stood, no more than 30 seconds earlier, admiring one of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen. But by the time we had returned, it had gone. I suspect, looking back, that my yelling and commotion had scared it off. I was bitterly disappointed that I had been unable to get her on it, or even get a record shot.
No more views of the Tichodrome Échelette would come, we stayed for another two hours, scanning the cliffs. The only other birds we saw were two more Merles Bleux, squabbling over cliff-space. The mood was sombre as we walked back towards the car park, and as we came to a small left turn in the path we saw some evidence of the noise that had been soundtracking our morning so clamorously only a few hours ago. Spilt across the gravel path was a huge patch of blood. It had mostly dried, but a few areas where it had pooled more densely still had liquid in them. It was deeply unpleasant to see and didn’t exactly lift the mood. There was a line of blood drips all the way back to the car, and by the time we had got back we were more than happy to leave.
As said previously, there are supposedly good reasons for boar to be hunted in this region, but it really doesn’t sit too nicely with me. There is definitely something of my city-based upbringing to that, but in future I will be trying to avoid birding these areas on hunting days; those days being Wednesdays and Saturdays on the basis of this trip.
The rest of my time in France was eventful, but not regarding birds. My partner had left her passport at her grandfather’s house, so we had an impromptu trip back to the Pyrenees on the 4th, stopping on the way back at the fishing village again to look for Cochevis Huppé (unsuccessfully). Our journey back to the UK via the Eurostar the next day was also hampered by bad weather, and we were forced to overnight in Paris after our cross-channel train was cancelled. Fortunately, the weather in question was snow, and we were able to enjoy amazing views of the Eiffel tower in the snow, before returning to ol’ blighty on the first train back the next morning.
Fig.12. The Eiffel Tower in the snow
A final few words (sorry)
I didn’t realise quite how long this was going to be. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, I hope you found it at least a little interesting. If there’s anything I’d like people to take away from reading this its that learning at least the basic ecology of the birds you’re looking for is vitally important. This can be hard to find as well; I’d be very interested in any books or websites which offer a more comprehensive understanding of how our British birds live their lives. I am thinking of investing in Birds of the Western Pal, but to do that, I will definitely need a job.
Anyway, for now I’m going to sign-off, I’m meant to have been working on a bird of the year video but have instead written over 5000 words on this trip, I will definitely write less for the next entry, which looks like it might be for a short walk planned on the 17th for the BTO.
Full eBird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/459733
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