A Wonderland of Wild Birds
The Canal at Day Break
Joan
9/22/20244 min read
Take a trip along the Canal Rhône Sète and you will see a lot of human activity, especially in summer. From leisure users on the banks , chiefly fishermen, joggers , and cyclists to many different kinds of boats. There are private craft and tourist boats; local fishing boats ; and occasionally a giant barge transporting materials between the River Rhône and Sète. These barges are so enormous that I cower as we cross paths.
But if you are wise, you will travel down the canal at day break, as we did the other day in order to catch the lifting bridge at Frontignan. We were returning from Maguelone to our mooring near the étang, and what a different world was revealed to us . For that is when you will see the true proprietors of this beautiful stretch of water. Forget all human activity. This realm of canal, marshland and lagoons really belongs to the birds, and early morning is when they are revealed in all their quiet splendour.
By far the most common bird is the yellow legged gull ( goeland marin.) These large birds line the dyke walls , watching us solemnly as we pass , like older men, passing their days on a park bench. In spring and summer you will see these birds nesting, or gathered in small family groups, but now their dark mottled youngsters stand alone and independent. But please don't think of these beautiful snow white breasted birds as scavengers, with their beautiful black and white tail feathers and red spotted beaks . They are nothing like the gulls you will see in fishing ports, stealing tourists' chips, or fish scraps discarded by fishing boats. Here they are king, and have no need to steal or beg.
Amongst other sea birds you will see along here are the graceful tern, as it dives like an arrow into the canal to spear a fish, or the smaller black headed gull. which in France is known as la mouette rieuse (the laughing gull.)