Wednesday 15 December 2010

ILE D'OLERON, 1st-3rd Sept




The plan was pretty much the same as last autumn - drive to the French west coast and look for migrating Ospreys and other migrants. Then a few days watching migration in the Pyrenees before heading south towards the Strait of Gibralter, stopping off in Extremadura both before and after spending a month in Tarifa. Ile d'oleron is a large Island connected to the French mainland by a road bridge and a quick glance on Google Earth showed the southern half to have shallow bays and estuaries perfect for passage Ospreys. We went through the Channel Tunnel at 03.25, arrived and departed Calais at 05.00 local time and were watching our first fishing Osprey on Ile d'oleron at 15.25. A great start to 2 months of non stop migration watching.