City Wildlife in France

For the last three weeks I have been in France on holiday. It was a family holiday, however, wildlife did play an important role in many of our activities. This included walks in the Vogues Hills and visiting the Camargue Nature Reserve in Provance.

Loire at Nevers

River walk in Nevers

 The purpose of this blog is to document the wildlife in an around the City of Worcester. However, I was really impressed by a few of the places we visited in France and felt it was worth a mention in this Blog. The cities of Nevers and Bourges really stood out as wildlife friendly and we had a lot of fun as a family exploring the wildlife contained within them, hence photo contributions are from the whole family. 

Scarlet Darter

Firebugs

The city of Nevers, in central France, is located on the banks of the River Loire. The built up area of the city goes right up the the river side. Despite that there was an abundance of wildlife. We walked along the river side walk for approximately 2 hours and spotted just under 40 species of bird (including Grey Herons, Kingfishers, Grey Wagtails, Little Egrets, Common Terns, Sandpipers, Bee Eaters, Hoopoe and a Golden Oriole). And perhaps 20 species of butterfly (our French butterfly identification skills are not that great!!!!).

Second Generation Map Butterfly??

Doing a bit of Birding

Map Butterfly (I Think)

There was also evidence of plenty of mammal life. Mainly rodents and foxes, but my wife, while trying to photograph, Bee Eaters, had an encounter with a Red Squirrel, it came out of the bushes and sat within 30cm, however, it ran for cover before she could turn around and take a photo. In addition, the river does have healthy populations of beavers, although not seen by us. They are really important ecosystem engineers and their presence will certainly help increase the diversity seen along the river.

Bee Eater

Bank Where Several Bee Eaters were Nesting

Two Bee Eaters

What helps make the river so good for wildlife is that the water levels are constantly changing throughout the year from high in winter to low in summer. In the summer time there are islands and sandbanks that can not be used for human activities. They are left to go wild and nature takes full advantage. The mud and sand banks provide plenty of opportunities for waders, we saw tens of Common and Green Sandpipers.

Sand Banks

Wild Flower on Sand Bank

Nettles Providing a Good Resource for Butterflies 

The river was teaming with fish. It is claimed that the river contains all the fresh water fish species that are native to France, including 100,000 Salmon spawning each year. Looking in from the bank it was clear that there were plenty of fish for the Kingfishers, Little Egrets, Herons etc. Some say that the Loire is the last wild river in Western Europe. A grand title but walking along its banks within the city of Nevers it felt that way. It felt great see such diversity and wildlife.

Little Egret Doing Some Fishing

Praying Mantis

The City of Bourges was also a wild life hot spot. The City has an area called the marshes. This is a network of canals that weave around what can be best described as allotment gardens. We walked around them for a few hours on a hot day and were entertained by the diversity of wildlife. There were willow warblers, little grebes, herons, several species of Butterfly, dragonfly and damsel flies. The area was originally part of the cities defences now it is used for gardening and wildlife.

Bouges Cathedral From the Marshes

Little Grebe

These two walks clearly show that our cities contain an abundance of wildlife. Whilst ours do not contain impressive species such as bee eaters they do have things of interest. Often we can find more species in our gardens and parks than in some more wild areas. It is important to get out and take a look you never know what you might find. 

Banded Demoiselle

Coot