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Fabrice Schmitt and Pierre Defos Du Rau on their recently completed tour, France: Birding à la Française - Birds, Wine and Cheese in Southern France



July 16: Fabrice Schmitt and Pierre Defos Du Rau on their recently completed tour, France: Birding à la Française - Birds, Wine and Cheese in Southern France

After years of scouting little restaurants and testing local wines, we finally decided we were ready to propose a ‘Birding à la française’ tour...and it has been great fun!

We had fantastic encounters including stunning views on a male Black Grouse displaying atop a little pine tree in the Vercors, an impressive Eurasian Eagle Owl hunting by daylight, a group of Great Spotted Cuckoo surprising us with amazing views at very short distance in Camargue,

 
Great Spotted Cuckoo

superb views of the colorful European Bee-eater, elegant Scopoli’s Shearwaters seen so well from our ferry on the way to Corsica, and finally fantastic views of the very local Corsican Nuthatch and Marmora’s Warbler in Corsica. 

Greater Flamingo

European Bee-eater

Corsican Nuthatch

Beside birds, we also had great memories of our splendid picnics during which we tested more than 15 different kind of cheese, several pâtés, hams, sausages and other sort of charcuterie, always coming with excellent bread and, obviously, fantastic wines.


A splendid picnic

The stunning flowering alpine meadows, the vast Camargue marshes and the dramatic Asco valley in Corsica were just a few of the many scenic places we travelled through during this succulent tour. We are already looking forward to the next edition!

The Asco valley

Posted: July 16, 2019