| Eastern France - Lower
Doubs + Jura, 14-18 June 2000 Birding trip report by John
van der Woude, The Netherlands |
|
| The Lower Doubs region,
East of Dijon in east-central France, has a varied
avifauna because some mediterranean species can be found
this far North, and because the lowland riverine habitat
is still rather natural, with wide meanders, sandy
cliffs, gravel bars, wooded banks, ox-bow lakes, a not
over-developed agriculture and some interesting forests
nearby. Moreover, the Jura mountain crests (1200 m+) are
only an hour drive away. As the road connections from the
North of France are superb, the region is an easy 8 hour
drive from Amsterdam, via Lille where we picked up our
friends from London. |
|
| We stayed in two hotels
along this stretch of the Doubs SW of Dole. First in the
village of Chaussin (hotel Chez Bach, with a good
restaurant of regional fame), then in the more rustic
hotel Doubs Rivage in the village of Charette, at a dead-end
street right at one of the specific birding sites. Both
have nice local wines from the foothills of the Jura
mountains (Arbois wine region). |
| Via EuroBirdNet and some
subsequent personal e-mails with two french birders I got
very precise information about birding sites: site maps
and descriptions for the Lower Doubs (to be published at http://perso.club-internet.fr/tillier/ornitho/doubs/index.html and a description of a good forest site in the Jura where we could try to find Hazelhen, about the only potential lifer of this trip for all four of us. For some supplementary sites the booklet Where to watch birds in France (Helm, 1992) was also useful. The maps we used were the Michelin road atlas 1:200.000, topographical (IGN) map 1:100.000 (nr. 37) and one of 1:25.000 (3327ET) for the Hazelhen site. We brought two scopes for the four of us, which was enough. The weather was bright all the time, and no special footwear was needed for the lowlands, whereas in the mountains we used trekking shoes. Of the three full days we spent two (15 and 17 June) in the lowlands, and one (16 June) in the mountains. On the last day (18 June) we did some morning birding near the hotel in Charette, and on the way back to Holland we made a short detour into the Champagne region, in order to collect some reasonably priced bottles of their liquid at the address that we know from our Crane winter excursions to the nearby Lac du Der Chantecoq (see another report at my site about such a winter visit). |
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| In the lowlands we
visited three sites along the Doubs river, one site with
two marshy lakes a few kms from the river, and one site
in a large forest nearby. The best riverine site was just
NE of the village of Fretterans along the south bank of
the river. Here you can park your car at the end of a
dirt track leading from the village to the river and walk
a bit to the right and to the left along the wooded river
side. We got Bluethroat, Sand Martin (colony), Black-crowned
Night-Heron, Red-backed Shrike, Oriole, Tree Sparrow,
Melodious Warbler, Corn Bunting, Litte Egret, Bee-eater,
Kingfisher, Black Tern, Little Ringed Plover, European
Serin, Stone-Curlew (thicknee). Common other species in
this region were Nightingale, Turtle Dove, Willow Tit,
Yellowhammer, Black Kite and Stonechat. The site of
Charette, a village more downstream, produced a subset of
that of Fretterans. The third riverine site is a large
one with an oxbow lake and some marshes, situated South
of the village of Petit-Noir. Here we added Moorhen,
Purple Heron, Hobby, Curlew, Hen Harrier, Reed Warbler. |
| The Helm booklet pointed
us to two marshy lakes 2 and 4 km right South of Charette.
These are set amidst woods called Bois de Vendues, and
the southern lake is called Etang Bailly. At these lakes
we got Little Grebe, Black-necked Grebe, Grebe, Pochard,
Mute Swan (dozens), Oriole, Hobby, Purple Heron,
Kingfisher, Cormorant, Tufted Duck, Stock Dove (landing
on the lake surface to drink and/or collect water!) and
Great Reed Warbler. |
| In the forest called
Foret Domanial de Pourlans, some 5 km North of the river,
we made a walk of about 4 km along the logging roads N of
the village of Pourlans and a short walk at the more
moisty eastern border of the forest. We had many Middle
Spotted Woodpecker, two Honey Buzzards together,
Redstart, Tree Pipit, Treecreeper, Hawfinch, and again
Oriole. There were also intriguing butterflies and
dragonflies. |
|
| In the Jura mountains
we first visited the forest called Foret du Risoux, in
search of the Hazelhen, a tricky bird but living in such
good forest habitat that a visit is always worthwhile.
This particular forest is situated between the villages
of Bellefontaine and Bois d'Amont about 7 km Northeast of
Les Rousses and Morez, at an altitude of 1200 m above sea
level. We made a walk of about 4 km on rather rough
tracks N of the Chalet de Ministres. We did not see the
Hazelhen but instead were rewarded with Capercaillie (female
flying off near us), a family of Pygmy Owl (at the first
open spot with tracks crossing the road, when coming from
Bellefontaine), Black Woodpecker (near the Chalet),
Crested Tit, Coal Tit, Crossbill, Raven, Ring Ouzel
calling at many spots, Bullfinch, Goldcrest. The forest
is an impressive mature mixture of spruce, beech and many
other tree and scrub species. |
 The other Jura site was the crest
at Mont Rond where the N5 crosses the border to
Switzerland. From here you have an enormous view across
the Lake of Geneva to the Mont Blanc (all snow) and many
other famous mountain tops. You have to walk up to this
crest from the ski station at Col de la Faucille (45 mins
good tracks), through some open woods next to the ski
pistes and alpine meadows, and these were good for Grey
Wagtail, Firecrest, Citril Finch, Bonelli's Warbler,
Wryneck, Water Pipit, Nutcracker, Peregrine. Several Ring
Ouzel were present here too, many Redstart, and the only
Willow Warbler of the trip. The latter is on the southern
frontier of its range here and maybe that's why we had it
only at this higher elevation. Below the highest point of
the crest is a tall rock face at the base of which we saw
a large group of chamois mountain goats (gems). These
compensated a bit for Wallcreeper that we had missed. |
| Species seen:
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