Le Vent, C'est Incroyable !

   The title means “The wind is unbelievable."

   Today we are starting the southern leg of our Birding France vacation. After breakfast this morning, we left the city of Pau, France, going west toward Toulouse in search of the Canal du Midi. The Canal du Midi is a canal in southern France. Made in the 18th century, the canal is 150 miles long. It connects the Garonne River at Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea.

   This region of France is very windy due to the cool winds which descend from the peaks of the Pyrenees which collide with the warm winds of the Mediterranean Sea. When we stepped out of the car, the wind blew Robert's hat off and made it difficult to walk. The wind snapped open doors. The picture of the Canal du Midi below was taken just south of Toulouse.

   There are no roads that run along the entire length of the Canal. There is a bike path. So, the Painted Bunting Bird Club used our tried and true technique of driving up and down rural country roads, birding our way, and occasionally crisscrossing the Canal. One of the birds that we saw in the Canal region was the Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula Hypoleuca). The male is mainly black above and white below, with a large white wing patch, white tail sides and a small forehead patch. The bill is black, and has the broad but pointed shape typical of birds that eat insects while flying. Females are brown and nondescript.

   We were driving next to a small hillside lake. We saw one strange looking duck. It was the Red Crested Pochard (Netta Rufina), which we had never seen before. The adult is unmistakable. It has an orange head and red bill when it is breeding. We were very excited to see this duck because they are not in North America.

   We found a wind blown lake called the Barrage de la Gangues, located near the small town of Castelnaudary, France. The whole area is like a wind tunnel. The wind is incredibly strong. It was so windy that a couple of terns flying, could not make headway against the wind. A poor little White Wagtail (Motacilla Alba) walked across the dam instead of flying, to avoid being blow away. Even as our car approached, the little bird ran to the side of the road, instead of flying away. Truly is it windy when even the birds have a hard time flying.

   The sign below says that "All nautical activities are prohibited" on the lake. In the background of the same photograph, you can see several surf boarders. We saw about twenty surf boarders racing back and forth across the lake in wetsuits. They all seemed to be having a lot of fun wind surfing in the heavy wind and breaking the law.

   Typically restaurants in France serve lunch from 12 noon to 2 in the afternoon. The cook wants to go home, we understand. But we were having so much fun poking around the Canal du Midi and looking for birds that the time slipped by and it was 2:15pm before we started thinking about lunch. We could not find a single place that was still open. We decided to go to a Super Marché and buy bread, sausage, cheese, olives and bananas and Pringles chips. We parked the car beside a small waterfall and had a picnic. After lunch we went back to our birding.

   The last bird of note that we saw today was a Great Tit (Parus Major). We have seen these all over France. This one seemed to be hanging on to the back of a road sign, trying not to be blown away. I looked like it was working for him.

   We have installed ourselves in Narbonne, France on the Mediterranean coast. We got a room in the Ibis Hotel. We ate dinner next door and watched American television programs on our Smartphones.

Robert and Berry

Photos courtesy of wikipedia, rfowler, and bfowler