Vismig in South West France

I'm a lucky guy. My other half is French which means that over the years I have got to know a particular corner of South West France very well indeed. Or it's birdlife, at least. And it's food and wine, I guess. You get the picture. We go there a lot and in its unremarkable way it is very lovely. We visit the outskirts of a small village, close to the city of Pau, where it's rural, covered in maize, and life seems to be slow.

For a long time my birding ambition with regard to the area focussed on the distant Pyrenees which I could see between the trees at the back of the garden. Wallcreepers and snow finch, and white-backed woodpecker in the forests (which I am still to catch up with...). Then I began to realise that I was sitting on something of a little gold mine. A wintering turtle dove was the first indication that interesting things could happen. August visits produced big dumps of flycatchers, redstarts, melodious warblers and the like, in particular after heavy overnight storms. Occasional nightingales and wrynecks accompanied them, and a single western Bonelli's warbler felt like a proper vagrant. The nocmig could be good too. Ortolans were regular at the right time of year, and waders would pass over, including a single record of whimbrel which feels decent for that part of the country. In winter, I once counted 12,000 woodpigeon passing in one hour but it wasn't until an October visit that my eyes were truly opened.

Covid had stopped us organising the usual trip to Ouessant in 2021 but a last minute change in lockdowns meant that we could fly to the SW to visit family. I had low hopes, but that would very quickly change. On the first day of that trip, while wandering around looking for woodlarks, several flocks of chaffinch passed over and to my great surprise, a little flock of hawfinch did as well. As the chaffinches continues to trickle through a couple of tree pipit passed over as well - birds were obviously on the move in good numbers. Completely unexpected but i was hooked, and spent an hour every morning counting and recording the passage of, mainly, finches.

Fast forward to October 2024 and again we have missed out on Ouessant although this time it's very much our own fault. However, I knew what to expect (or at the very least, hoped that 2021 wasn't a one-off) and was pretty excited to see what this visit produced.

I'm no expert on vismig but I think I know what makes this very unspectacular location work. The area is largely floodplain with raised, wooded ridges, and when you plot the dominant lines of flight onto a map, it all makes sense.

The view SW to the Pyrenees from my vismig spot

And here's the location on a map. The red spot is roughly where I stand and the green arrows show the dominant flightlines of migrating birds. The vast majority of birds are travelling SE along the ridge, or are coming SE along the other edge of the ridge and then cut the corner southwards as they see the ridge peter out into enormous flat fields.

So - what of the birds. It's mainly finches, with chaffinch and brambling dominating numerically. However, among my favourites are the groups of hawfinch that bound through. I've maxed at 68 in an hour with a single flock of 19 once. fantastic stuff for a bird that I otherwise see so little of. I like the recording below as I picked them up early - you really get the impression of a flock on the move and there's a good mix of the two flight calls.

Other enjoyable finches include serin, and an N11 call-type crossbill which felt quite a long way home

There are other birds too of course. White and grey wagtails pass through in good numbers, as do meadow pipits, with the odd tree pipit and water pipit too. Later in October woodpigeon numbers start to pick up. I really love this woodpigeon recording, at least in part because there won't be many like it. It's pretty subtle, but if you listen carefully you can hear the combined wingbeats of hundreds of woodpigeons as they flock overhead. Not a single vocal sound at all, but a really great noise, and for me one that makes the effort, and the realities of migration a little more stark.

And of course there are surprises too. I've never had zitting cisticola in this part of France so I was very surprised to hear one migrating past me one morning! That was totally (and literally!) out of the blue for me and was probably a bigger surprise than what is certainly the best bird that the site has produced. If only I was facing in the right direction the first time I heard this red-throated pipit call! Luckily I didn't panic too hard and managed to get something useable the second time it called. I had hoped for a rare pipit but was thought that Richards or even olive-backed might be more likely, so a red-throated pipit really made my day. In fact, had I been on Ouessant it would have been a tough find to beat there, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to get one over the middle of nowhere-in-particular.

I'd be really interested to see what similar effort could produce earlier in the year - dawn migrating Ortolans? Waders? Or what about into September - who knows, but I'm convinced that effort here would be rewarded with good birds. Here's hoping I get a chance to find out.

Here's a selection of counts and highlights from the two weeks (well, the one hour sessions at least...) I've spent vismigging from this location.

Week 1 - 18th to 28th October, 11 mornings, 11 hours of counting.

Stock dove	6
Woodpigeon	21,406
Woodlark	35
Skylark	44
Mistle thrush	10
Song thrush	184
Redwing	33
Grey wagtail	18
White wagtail	96
Meadow pipit	386
Tree pipit	6
Water pipit	2
Chaffinch	4,788
Brambling	907
Hawfinch	222
Bullfinch	1
Greenfinch	16
Linnet	168
Crossbill	1
Goldfinch	117
Serin	32
Siskin	379
Yellowhammer	6

Week 2 - 16th to 23rd October, 6 mornings, 7 hours

Stock dove	7
Woodpigeon	2,222
Goshawk	1
Woodlark	22
Skylark	149
Zitting cisticola	1
Mistle Thrush	16
Song thrush	351
Redwing	100
Grey wagtail	11
White wagtail	132
Meadow pipit	244
Tree pipit	2
Red-throated pipit	1
Chaffinch	4,598
Brambling	185
Hawfinch	71
Bullfinch	3
Greenfinch	5
Linnet	133
Goldfinch	29
Serin	14
Siskin	23
Corn bunting	1
Reed bunting	1