Warm and sunny but big clouds as well. This might be the last good day for a while! There’s an interesting nature reserve near Châteauneuf du Pâpe that we go to from time to time. Today was one of those times. It’s a natural saline pond - or it was... it fills only with rainwater and dries up only by evaporation. Originally in the Middle Ages it would be used for salt but over the centuries it was irrigated and lost its salinity then was used for forage crop production and eventually as a natural reed bed area. The water level is now managed with ditches so it never completely dries up, though the water levels vary with rainfall.
The whole area is fringed with tall elegant blond reeds dotted with dark teazels and stands of poplar and willow on the outer edge.
There’s a bird hide in the reeds and today for the first time we saw water and some actual birds! Mallard, coots, and these unknown ones. Grebe come too but none today.
The inevitable invisible twittering birds are everywhere. I stood for ages following this one dart about in the branches. Eventually managed to snap it. We think it’s a warbler, possibly willow warbler.
And there are frogs! Noisy ones. As there are no fish the little blighters thrive. Actually they have a few rare species here. Heaven for Herons. Talking of which, after we left we went to the
Rhône levée for a walk near Hers. The river Seyne flows alongside and this is also a nature reserve where you see and here lots of birds, always a heron or two.
As I was strolling back, eyes on the water for a glimpse of fish, a shadow passed across the path. No sound. And it was a moment before I realised it as a skein of big dark birds with long necks right above me. By the time camera was aimed they were a mere line in the sky over the river so I’ve no idea what they were!
More pictures in the Google album including a fine male mallard and men laying astroturf across the road!
