Giens Peninsula, Hyères, Côte d’Azur. 19.35.
The sun graced us with its presence once again, so I set out early today. It usually takes me a few days to properly get my bearings, and I was eager to explore the saltmarshes between Giens and Hyères, so I grabbed my camera and a bite to eat and was out the door by half past eight. At least at this time of year, that’s not too long after sunrise.
My first hurdle was the path around the Étang des Pesquiers. The maps will tell you there’s a footpath you can follow that laps the lagoon. The maps are wrong. What might have been an access point to the inner ring is fenced off and within private property, and the other bridge – a further three kilometres to the north – allows you no closer unless you are with a guided tour, which departs once a week on Wednesdays or Thursdays. There is a wildlife trail that eventually leaves the main road, but the saltpans are almost empty from there on out. The animals aren’t dumb, and they stick to the reserve.
At least there’s plenty to see from the road, even if you can’t get all that close. It’s also quite a nice walk, when there isn’t that much traffic (for a relatively small peninsula there was a lot of movement for a Thursday morning).
I found a small mound just beyond the sluice gates and took up a stakeout to see what I could see and hear. A Japanese family of three came blundering in and spooked most of the local wildlife with their chatter, but after they had moved on the birds slowly began to reappear. I recognised a few old Mediterranean favourites from my childhood among the scrub lining the dyke: Sardinian warblers, Cetti’s warblers, firecrests and the ever-characterful zitting cisticola. It’s a little late in the year for the bouncing flight call that gave them their S-tier name, but I’m a lot better at identifying them on sight than I used to be, so I don’t need to rely on their call so much.
There are all sorts of waders to see at this time of year as the autumn migration kicks off. I counted redshanks, greenshanks, grey plovers, bar-tailed godwits, curlews and the always elegant avocet, but I’m sure I’d have found more if I’d found a path into the marshes. I even saw a young ringtail Hen Harrier quartering the edge of the saltmarsh as I arrived, though I never did track it down again. I had similar luck with the water rails that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, though I must have been close enough to stepping on one at one point.
The real draw of the Étang des Pesquiers is its wintering herd of flamingoes. I’ve seen Greater Flamingoes before and in greater numbers, too – Doñana always delivered plenty, not to mention the enormous breeding colony at Antequera’s Fuente de Piedra lagoon – but these are the fifth flamingo species I’ve seen this year alone. To see the last of the six, the Lesser Flamingo, I’d have to travel to East Africa or India. I’m not quite mad enough for that, but it’s pretty awesome to have seen nearly all of the flamingoes of the world in a single year.
The others were not yet out of bed by the time I got back around eleven, so I needn’t have hastened home. They’d already had breakfast, but I think the fresh supply of baguettes from the lakeside bakery was appreciated.
We had lunch outside with the mistral blowing. Some generous soul left a decent pair of binoculars here, so I scanned the sea for shearwaters. I didn’t find any, but I did spot a single fisherman reeling in his net just offshore.
We had a game of tennis in the afternoon – or as close to a game of tennis as one decent player and four academics could manage. It was fun, even though I’m about as good at tennis now as I was when I was fourteen – which is to say, laughably bad. I did manage to hit the ball a few times though, which is a small improvement.
The sunsets here are rather special. I think we’re due another thunderstorm. The red sky certainly seemed to imply that the rain will return, so I’m glad to have got out and done some exploring today.
I certainly wouldn’t begrudge another lightning storm. The last one was pretty spectacular.
Tomorrow, Toulon. Raffi needs to track down a luthier, first and foremost, and there’s more to see in the south of France beyond the Giens Peninsula. BB x
