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Lapwing in Flight

A few weekends ago, Thomas and I went to Champagne, France.  It wasn’t the typical trip to Champagne, filled with fancy hotels and fizzy drinks, but instead, we were there to do some bird-watching.  Just outside of Champagne, in an area called Chantecoq, there are some lakes (Lac du Der and Lac d’Orient) where cranes stop during their annual southern migration and we tried to catch a peek.

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Riding through the countryside

Birding trips are interesting.  They involve early mornings (the best time to see birds is sunrise and sunset), carrying lots of gear (camera with a 500mm lens, binoculars, a birding scope, and two tripods), traveling to remote areas, and lots of sitting still.  We knew we were in the right place when we stumbled upon some other birders with huge scopes, heavy enough that they towed them in a children’s wagon.

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Birds at the lake

Though we saw many birds through our binoculars and scopes, we weren’t able to capture many with our cameras — they were just too far away.  We saw lots of Northern Lapwings, Eurasian Widgeon, White Wagtails, and a few Common Cranes and Black Storks.  We also saw some muskrats, a pack of wild hogs, deer, lizards, and frogs.

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Thomas in a field

It was a fun trip, and we did squeeze in a quick tour at the Mercier Champagne House, but I think we were a little early for the birding migration.  I think we would have seen more if we waited until mid-October…maybe next year.

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Misty Lake View

Below are some links to the places we did our bird-watching and the rest of our trip photos on Flickr:

Related posts:

  1. Birding in Brussels
  2. Birding and Bunkers in Côte d’Opale
  3. Parc Paradisio
  4. Front Porch Birding