Wildlife to see in France in March
4 spectacles at their peak in France in March, and 8 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open France in March in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in March
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.
Spring migration counts: Col de l'Escrinet, Pointe de Grave and Le HucelA river of chaffinch flight calls over the col at dawn, meadow pipits, serins and linnets in the flocks, woodpigeon wing-clatter, cranes bugling northwards in March, and at Pointe de Grave the May sound of swifts screaming low over the dunes and bee-eaters calling in off the Gironde — one of the few places in France where spring migration is a sound you can stand under.
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.
Also going on in March
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lac de Grand-Lieu: the great heronry and the spoonbill colonyHeron and egret traffic croaking and barking overhead at dawn and dusk, black terns and whiskered terns squabbling over the water lilies, Savi's warbler reeling and a booming bittern from the reedbeds at Pierre-Aiguë, cuckoos and water rails — the colony itself is heard only as a distant, constant squabble across the water.