It was nice weather on Sunday so we decided to take a trip towards the Pyrénées to a lake near Puydarrieux. This is just over the border from our department in the ’65’ or Hautes Pyrénées and is the favourite spot for common cranes (grus grus) to pass winter before migrating to warmer climes in January/February time.
I’ve visited here a long time ago, and since them all sorts of rules and regulations have come into being and now you cannot go anywhere near the water, presumably to protect the migrating birds.
As you can see, there aren’t many cranes here…this is the closest we could get.
So we waitied, as these birds congregate towards the end of the afternoon as they all seem to like the idea of safety in numbers and all ‘sleep’ in one place. Sadly, the level of the lake has gone down and the majority of the birds seem to prefere a spot that’s well hidden from the public, so the mass of birds expected just wasn’t seen.
However, we did have a very spectacular over-fly by what seemed like hundreds of these birds…(here are just a few)
The cranes flying overhead before arriving at the lake, with the mountains in the distance.
While we were waiting I took the opportunity to make a few images of our surroundings – here’s the ‘Pic du Midi’ scientifique research station
And some late cows…with the sun going down…
A nice afternoon – but a lot of waiting around with not much going on!