Where to Watch Birds in France

Jean-Yves Barnagaud is an associate professor in Montpellier, where he teaches ecology and statistical analysis. His recent work has focused on the analysis of data gathered by volunteers to investigate bird distribution and diversity patterns, with a specific interest in the influence of land-use practices on bird and reptile community dynamics. He has also been involved in several national and regional atlas projects and regularly collaborates with land managers in local conservation initiatives. As a birdwatcher, he has regularly visited France’s major birding sites over the last two decades, focusing on migration stopover places in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Brittany and his current location on the Mediterranean coast between the Camargue and the Pyrenees.Nidal Issa is a project manager in an environmental consulting office in Champagne. He has been involved in several local nature conservation initiatives and has published over a dozen articles on bird identification, travelling, bird status and birdwatching highlights in national ornithological journals. He coordinated the French bird atlas from 2009 to 2015, and contributed to the national IUCN bird Red List. He also served as a member of the French rarities committee from 2011 to 2015. He usually spends some time on Ushant island in autumn, looking for American and Siberian vagrants among other migrants. He devotes the rest of the year to local birding spots and searching for rare breeding birds, with a specific interest in raptors and black stork.Sébastien Dalloyau spent his childhood close to the Aiguillon bay, where he developed an early interest in coastal and marine ecosystems. His focus on waterbirds led to a PhD on brent geese at the Chizé research centre. In subsequent years, he worked for the French oceanographic research institute (Ifremer) on benthic seagrass and intertidal habitats. His involvement in ecology allowed him to participate in scientific expeditions to the Taimyr peninsula, sub-Antarctic islands and Kazakhstan. He is currently the national coordinator of the brent goose monitoring network within the Goose Specialist Group (Wetlands International). In parallel, he works as a spatial analyst and expert ecologist for a bird conservation trust. He was recently involved in the French bird atlas and he manages projects on farmland birds, waterbirds and bird programmes in the French overseas territories.

Rarely it is possible to find a naturalistic guide with this abundance of information on the roads to drive or to walk and the bird species that may be observed. The novelty of this book is that all the sites are geolocated in a file that can be downloaded from the publisher’s website and loaded onto any GPS device. … Everybody who has planned a naturalistic trip to France must place in the luggage this book!

• Symbol chart Foreword PrefaceAcknowledgements Introduction Regions at a glance Practical information Birdwatching in France Region 1 – Paris and the Seine Reservoirs Region 2 – From the North Sea to the Somme Bay and the western Ardennes Region 3 – Normandy Region 4 – Brittany Region 5 – The Loire Valley Region 6 – Poitou-Charentes and the Vendée Region 7 – Aquitaine Region 8 – The Pyrenees Region 9 – Western Mediterranean Coast and the Cévennes Region 10 – Eastern Mediterranean Coast, Southern Alps and Corsica Region 11 – Jura and the Alps Region 12 – Massif Central Region 13 – Burgundy Region 14 – Northeast Birdfinder Checklist Site index