Wintering cranes at Arjuzanx

Common crane (Grus grus). Landes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.

Best time: 15 Nov – 15 Feb (November to February). Where: Réserve naturelle d'Arjuzanx – observation tower, Camp militaire de Captieux / Landes de Gascogne (France). Time of day: Roost arrival from about an hour before sunset until well after dark, the chorus continuing an hour or more.

• Partly on your own
• Entry fee
• Binoculars helpful
• Sound 5/5

Open it in the interactive calendarSunrise and sunset listening times for the day you pick, and the map.

When is the best time?

Peak: 15 Nov – 15 Feb. Mid Nov to mid Feb (25–30,000 birds)

Active from 10 Oct to 10 Mar (October to March) in a typical year.

Time of day

Roost arrival from about an hour before sunset until well after dark, the chorus continuing an hour or more; guided dusk visits run daily Nov–Feb (meet at the Maison de site from about 15:00, be there by 17:00). Dawn departure in the half hour around sunrise on morning visits.

• Roost arrival: 1 h before sunset → 1 h after last light
• Dawn departure: 30 min before sunrise → 30 min after sunrise

What will you hear?

Waves of cranes dropping into the flooded roost after dark, a continuous rolling chorus that carries for kilometres over the pine plantations.

Binoculars?

Binoculars helpful. Waves drop into the roost after dark, mostly heard; binoculars from the tower in the last light.

Where to go

• Réserve naturelle d'Arjuzanx – observation tower — 15 m tower over the roost; guided dusk visits Oct–Feb by booking. Map
• Camp militaire de Captieux / Landes de Gascogne — Second large roost, on military land — no access; birds seen from surrounding roads. Map

How to go on your own, and what it costs

The reserve's free-access observatories and the 'Peuple des Grues' trail along Lac Menjuc are open in daylight — park at the Maison de site (Arjuzanx) and walk. The roost itself is only visited on the guided dusk and dawn visits (Nov–Feb, online booking from 15 Sept). The public D roads around the reserve are open at night.

Cost: Free observatories by day; guided visits €10 adult, €5 child 6–16, under-6 free (2026).

Free or no-guide alternative: The reserve's free observatories and the Rive Menjuc trail (daylight) give the daytime flocks; for the roost chorus, stand on the public roads around the reserve at dusk — the sound carries kilometres over the pines.

Who runs access

• Réserve naturelle d'Arjuzanx – visites guidées grues (park authority) — Dusk visits daily and dawn visits several days a week, Nov–Feb; online booking.

Field-recording notes

The reserve is closed outside guided hours, so night access is only with the guides — ask about staying after the group leaves. Pine plantations block wind well. Hunting (including for cranes' companions, woodpigeons) is intense in the Landes in autumn; the reserve itself is a former mine and quiet.

Sources

• Réserve naturelle d'Arjuzanx – observation des grues

Similar spectacles

• Wintering cranes in the Extremadura dehesaSpain · Wintering waterfowl · peak 20 Nov–10 FebTens of thousands of cranes flying into the roosts at sunset in wave after wave, bugling in the acorn dehesa by day, with wintering lapwings, golden plovers and greylags.
• Common cranes buglingUnited Kingdom · Wintering waterfowl · peak 1 Dec–15 MarTrumpeting bugles carrying over 2 km, unison calls from pairs, and the low rolling contact calls of a roosting group in the reeds.
• Winter wetlands: geese, ducks & cranesItaly · Wintering waterfowl · peak 1 Dec–28 FebGoose flights at dawn, whistling wigeon rafts, cranes bugling as they pass north in late winter.
• Cranes at Laguna de GallocantaSpain · Migration · peak 1 Nov–30 Nov and 15 Feb–10 MarUp to 100,000 cranes lifting off the salt lagoon at first light in a continuous trumpeting roar that lasts half an hour, then skeins bugling over the steppe villages.
• Spring crane staging: Hornborgasjön and PulkenSweden · Migration · peak 25 Mar–12 AprThousands of cranes bugling in chorus — trumpeting that carries for kilometres, rising to a roar when a flock lifts; unison calls of pairs, wing noise of landing flocks, whooper swans and lapwings in the background.
• Cranes dancing on the dune heaths and bogsDenmark · Dawn chorus & song · peak 15 Mar–20 AprCrane pairs duetting and bugling across the wet dune slacks at first light, the dance's wing-flaps, curlew, golden plover and snipe drumming around them; ravens; the North Sea in Thy.

More: all spectacles in France · cranes · winter geese, swans and ducks · France in January · France in February · France in November · France in December