Wildlife to see in France in August
5 spectacles at their peak in France in August, and 10 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open France in August in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in August
Cicadas of ProvenceThe Provence cliché done properly: Lyristes' continuous saw at 100+ dB from the pines, Cicada orni's pulsing ticks from the oaks, and a shift of species with the hour and the tree.
Baie de Somme: harbour seals & wader roostsSeal pups bawling and adults grunting from the sandbanks at 300 m, oystercatcher and curlew roosts, and spoonbills clattering in the Marquenterre heronry.
Fin whales & sperm whales off the Côte d'AzurWith a hydrophone: sperm whale clicks and codas, striped dolphin whistles and the shipping lane behind. Fin whale 20 Hz pulses need a hydrophone with real LF extension.
Mercantour summer: marmots, ibex and wolf countryMarmot alarm whistles across high cirques, ibex hooves on rock, alpine choughs and lammergeier wingbeats; wolf howls are possible but rare and never guaranteed.
Pyrenean passes: raptor, stork, pigeon & crane migrationMostly visual, but woodpigeon flocks pass with a rush of wings, cranes bugle over the pass, and pre-dawn passerine flight calls stream through — with gunfire from the neighbouring hunting passes.
Also going on in August
Nightjars and woodlarks of the Landes pine forestChurring nightjars from every clear-fell in Europe's largest planted forest, woodlarks still singing at dusk, and the surf from the Atlantic dunes if you are near the coast.
Sept-Îles: gannets on Rouzic, puffins and auksFrance's only gannet colony (about 14,000 pairs on Rouzic) as a wall of grating calls from the boat, puffins and kittiwakes on the sea, and the Atlantic swell against the granite.
Baie de l'Aiguillon: wader roosts and winter geeseThe roar of 20,000 dunlin and plover lifting off the mud as the tide covers it, godwit and curlew flocks calling as they cross the dyke, wigeon whistling by the thousand on winter mornings, greylags at dawn and, in December, cranes bugling in to roost over the marsh.
Banc d'Arguin terns & Arcachon brent geeseA grating Sandwich tern colony of thousands of pairs on a sandbank in the Atlantic swell; in winter, the rolling 'rronk' of brent flocks on the eelgrass beds.
Flamingo colonies of the CamargueGoose-like honking from thousands of birds, the massed 'marching' displays, and flights of hundreds passing low over the étangs at dusk.
Midwife toad piping in the villagesPure, bell-like single notes at about 1.2 kHz from dozens of males in dry-stone walls and rubble, like an out-of-tune carillon across a whole valley.
Shearwater colonies: Îles d'Hyères and LavezziWailing and cackling shearwaters arriving over the cliffs at night to their burrows — Port-Cros holds about 90% of France's Yelkouan population — with the Mediterranean swell below.
Iroise: grey seals of Molène and Sein dolphinsSeal moans and pup calls from the reef islets, a resident bottlenose pod around Sein and Molène, and the Iroise swell — France's most oceanic soundscape.
Vulture cliffs of the Jonte, Verdon and OssauWing-rush of griffons passing a few metres over the rim, hissing and grunting from the colony ledges, chough flocks and the river below; more a sight than a sound.
Cap Gris-Nez: seabird passage through the Dover StraitA visual passage — skuas harrying terns, gannet lines, scoter strings — above the one great sound of the place: the Channel breaking on the rocks 50 m below, with kittiwakes and the Gris-Nez foghorn in sea fog. Overland, meadow pipits and finches stream past calling on October mornings.