Wildlife to see in France in December
5 spectacles at their peak in France in December, and 4 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open France in December in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in December
Wintering cranes at ArjuzanxWaves of cranes dropping into the flooded roost after dark, a continuous rolling chorus that carries for kilometres over the pine plantations.
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.
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.
Ibex, chamois & isard rutHorn clashes echoing off rock, snorting and hissing males chasing across scree, and the snow-muffled silence of winter valleys.
Also going on in December
Cranes at Lac du DerTens of thousands of cranes bugling as they leave the lake at first light in wave after wave, then the evening return with the sky full of trumpeting skeins.
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.
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.
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.