Visit our stand at NW Bird Watching Festival 2024

Join us at the NW Bird Watching Festival Sat 19th & Sun 20th October WWT Martin Mere in Burscough, Lancs.

Come and have a chat at the Birding Languedoc stand where you can find out how to plan a visit to coincide with a couple of our guided day trips.

We will be bringing brochures for Where to watch birds in the Narbonnaise, Brenne, Alpilles and Camargue regional parks and also a guide for the Occitanie Rail Tour.

There are plenty of other reasons to come along to the NW Birding Watching Festival 2024 at WWT Martin Mere on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th October 2024 – and not least the spectacular numbers of Pink-footed geese to be seen! But also other talks stands, books, clothes and optics! See the full programme here.

Low carbon exotic birding

Find out about how easy it is to reach the Languedoc by train and about low carbon birding opportunities at our talk “Wildlife of the Western Mediterranean – by train from the UK!” talk we will be giving in the Education centre room at 11h45 on both Saturday and Sunday. So come along and hear all about the wonderful wildlife you can see in one of the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots – and how you can get here by train!

So if you are itching to travel and see some exotic birds and other wildlife, but want to stay close to home and keep your carbon footprint down – the Birding Languedoc stand at the NW Bird Watching Festival @wwtmartinmere is where you need to be!

Mas des Amandiers, Ortaffa, Pyrénées-Orientales

Mas des Amandiers offers self-catering accommodation for four people on three hectares of oak woodland and grassland

In the countryside south of Perpignan, this newly fitted out self-catering holiday rental can accommodate four people: one double bedroom and one bunk room.
The property is situated on three hectares of oak woodland and grassland, near the Albères hills that form the Eastern end of the Pyrenees, close to the Mediterranean Sea, Spain and the Pyrenees.
Book a week (or two!) in the spring and join some of the Birding Languedoc day trips to make the most of a birdwatching holiday to the area!

Plenty of birdwatching on site!

An amazing 90 bird species have been recorded from the property with 24 species nesting here including Golden oriole, Woodchat shrike, Bonellis warbler and Nightjar. The property is just 30 minutes’ drive from Etang de Canet with its Flamingos, an hour’s easy drive to the Aiguamolls wetland reserve over the border in Spain and only one hour to the high Pyrenees (vultures, Golden eagles). There are several good migration spots nearby too, adding even more birdwatching interest in spring and late summer. Seasonal home grown produce is available from our orchard and veggie patch.

We are a French/English couple and look forward to welcoming you to the Mas des Amandiers. For more photos, information and booking you can click here, or contact us directly by e-mail.

We can pick you up from Perpignan rail station if necessary.

Birding day trip Aude river plain May 2024

Lesser kestrels galore!

For today’s Global Birding big day – we spent most of the day around the Aude river plain where the mixed habitat of river, riparian forest, vineyard and uncultivated fields is host to a wide variety of birds. We finished the day on the coast near the Pissevaches lagoon and the filtration ponds, reaching a total number of 68 species seen or heard.
The morning started with a superb view of a striking male Woodchat shrike which landed on a pine tree just next to the cars. As we continued our walk around the Aude river flood plain, we were thrilled with the number of Lesser kestrels hunting the area…

Read more or download the trip report with a full bird list here.

Birding day trip Béziers-Lespignan April 2024

A fabulous day’s birdwatching!

The day started at Béziers airport with Little bustard, Stone curlew and Great spotted cuckoo! Then on down to the wetland area, where Collared pratincole and Purple swamphen were welcome additions to the list.

And the afternoon at Lespignan provided fabulous views of Lesser kestrel males bringing delicious giant centipedes as offerings before mating!

A great day’s birding with a stunning total of 74 species – including some top rated ones 🙂

You can read or download the trip report with bird list here.

Birding day trip La Palme-Sainte Lucie April 2024

Merlin & Red-footed falcon on migration

We spent the morning enjoying open garrigue where a pair of Woodchat shrike gave us a great display! Stonechat taking food to an unseen nest and some good raptors on migration, most of which we thought were Merlin, but it turned out that on checking photos later, at least two were in fact Red-footed falcon. Some better sheltered woodland added wonderful views of Pied-flycatcher and a particularly brightly coloured male Common redstart.
The day continued down on the old salt pans checking out the migrating Yellow wagtails – some iberiae sbsp and some flava!
We ended up at the recently built nesting islands that are now occupied by a colony of Common tern.