For The Journey – Birds of a Feather

Swimming and Sunning in Sardinia

June 26, 2010 4:10 PM

I had one main goal for my US trip – you know, other than see family, go shopping, and eat my favorite foods. It was to go swimming. I don’t know where I thought I’d go, but I had grand hopes of finding a pool somewhere and just floating. I was definitely a sea animal in a previous life. Unfortunately, I never found a pool, ocean, lake, or even a large bathtub. So when we got back to Belgium, I started planning a trip to a sunny warm place on the ocean.

The Costa Rei Beach

A couple weekends ago, Thomas and I headed down to Sardinia. It’s an island just off of Italy, on the southwest side between Corsica and Sicily. It was wonderful! We stayed on the eastern coast (Costa Rei beach) in a quiet little resort town with gorgeous beaches and clear blue water. The other tourists were definitely European (mostly German), as most of the men wore speedos and women occassionally went topless. I think a bigger shock to some may have been the naked or topless children on the beach. As long as they’re sunscreened well, I guess I can’t see any problem with it.

Shallow pools and smooth rocks

Speaking of sunscreen, we got our fair share of burn. Traveling with only a carry-on, and limited to 3 oz of liquids, we skimped on the sunscreen and came home with peeling feet and shoulders. When I went to the baby doctor the other day, she was concerned about the marbled spots on my legs and asked if everything was okay. I had to explain that I just didn’t do a very good job at spreading my sunscreen evenly.

Delicious caprese salad

So other than the sun, the water was wonderful. It was warm enough to swim, and the beach had huge sandbars and smooth rocks that you could walk out on. The food was delicious too. Thomas was the photographer for the weekend and spent a lot of time on the local birds. We mostly saw sparrows and swallows, but also some martins, flycatchers, and a cormorant in the ocean.

Sparrow on a rock

Cormorant in the ocean

On our last day, we drove back along the southern coast, and stopped at the salt marshes outside of Cagliari. We had heard that flamingos often visit here, and we found them! There were a bunch, maybe 60 at least, but they were on the other side of the lake, so we didn’t get that many photos. It was interesting to see pink feathers on the shore, but with a bird-touching phobia, I didn’t bother to bring any home with me.

Flamingos in the salt marshes

So if you ever need a little getaway with gorgeous weather, relaxing views, delicious food, and plenty of swimming, I recommend Sardinia. If you want to see more photos from our trip, I’ve posted them on PicasaWeb.

Weekend in Sardinia (45 photos)

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Birding in Champagne

October 8, 2009 4:57 PM

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.

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.

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.

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.

Misty Lake View

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

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- France

Parc Paradisio

September 29, 2009 7:27 PM

Two weekends ago, Thomas and I went birdwatching in Champagne (blog post coming soon). Although we saw many birds on our trip, we spotted them through our scope, further than we could capture with our cameras. The next weekend, though, we guaranteed ourselves some bird photo-ops at Parc Paradisio outside of Mons. Our buddies, Reid and her daughter Connor, joined us for the fun.

I was instantly drawn to Parc Paradisio in our Belgium guide book because it promised hundreds of exotic birds. When we arrived, we discovered the price was higher than a normal zoo at almost 20 euros per person, but we figured after our 1.5 hour drive, we couldn’t turn around just yet. I’ll admit that I was disappointed at first, when we found cages of birds lining the sidewalk. They were beautiful, exotic birds, but I have become spoiled in my zoo photography after our Behind the Scenes Atlanta Zoo Tour.

We continued on, and I’m glad we did. Just a little further and we were surrounded by a beautiful Japanese garden with waterfalls, pagodas, peaceful music, and cranes out in the open. As we had specifically been searching for cranes on our Champagne trip, it was a real treat to see all the varieties they had there.

The park also had sections for giraffes, elephants, monkeys, etc. They weren’t as fancy as the Japanese garden, but they were nicely landscaped, clean, and the animals has some room to roam. The coolest part of the park, however, was the playground. It gets two thumbs up from the toddler in our group, and the adults. They had rope bridges strung all over the place, giant spider webs to climb, bowl-shaped swings you can lay in, and my favorite, which you can see Reid and Connor on below, was a see-saw that not only went up and down, but also around.

So overall, despite the high cost, and the long drive, it was well worth it. Thomas and I have already decided that whenever our niece and nephew come visit us, we’re going to take them to Parc Paradisio.

All of these photos were shot with an 80-200 mm lens. If you’d like to see more photos from the park, I’ve posted them on Flickr:

Parc Paradisio (20 photos)

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- Becoming Bruxellois

Birding and Bunkers in Côte d’Opale

July 16, 2009 8:58 PM

It may sound kind of weird, but the most romantic trips for Thomas and me seem to be birding road trips. They follow our moto, “it’s for the journey, not the destination.” We usually have no idea where we’re going or what we’re going to find, but it always ends up an adventure. We went on a trip like that this last weekend – to Côte d’Opale, the Northern Coast in France.

Curvy road to Cap Blanc Nez

Côte d’Opale is only two hours from Brussels, but we took the motorcycle on backroads, making the trip 9-hours round trip. We were really curious about how much we could pack on Thomas’ bike, and were surprised that we had plenty of room for 2 sleeping bags, a tent, a birding scope, cameras, tripod and lenses, and a change of clothes.

Thomas with his loaded up bike

The weather wasn’t the best with overcast skies and occassional rain, but Thomas is an ATGATT (all the gear, all the time) rider, and we were set. I had on a quick dry t-shirt, blue jeans, rain pants and jacket, motorcycle pants and hi-vis jacket, helmet, gloves, and boots. I stayed dry when it rained, cool when it was warm, and warm when it cooled down.

Dallas waits while Thomas fills the bike with gas

When we ride, we stop every hour to walk around and take a break. One of our breaks was at Trench of Death – a free museum of a WWI bunker. It was pretty neat to be able to walk around the bunker and see how tough the conditions must have been for the soldiers. Thomas (a history buff) added in lots of details like that many of the soldiers suffered from trench foot (an infection from wet feet), and due to the technology boom in that time, some soldiers were still using old fashioned clubs while others had tanks and guns.

Thomas in the Trench of Death

We also breaked an old cemetery where we wandered around and looked at some of the old and different-styled tombstones – most actually had photographs on them of the person buried there. Another stop was at the cute little town of Dunkerque where we got a tasty snack at a patisserie.

Afterward, we headed to our campsite and setup our tent. I’m a bit disappointed in the European campsites I’ve seen so far. They’re just nice grassy parking lots for RV’s – not the pretty woodsy like you see in the US. Still, for 6 euros, I’m not complaining – I was so exhausted by the end of day that I would have slept anywhere.

Sheep next to a bunker

Before dinner, we headed over to Cap Gris Nez, a cape looking out towards the British coast. It was surrounded by old bunkers (and sheep), but it was a gorgeous view. I think my favorite part of the whole trip was standing on the cliff and watching the sea birds fly around under us – it reminded me of our honeymoon in the Galapagos.

Cap Gris Nez

We then enjoyed a nice seafood dinner and headed back to camp for a deep sleep. The next morning, we headed out to Cap Blanc Nez. It was a misty morning, but still there were amazing views.

That afternoon, we headed to Le Platier d’Oye, a birding reserve. They had several permanent hides set up around a marshy lake and a trail out to sand dunes and the ocean. We saw a few new-to-us birds that we’re still working on IDing and a ton of frogs.

Dallas uses the scope on the Dunes at Le Platier d'Oye

We had one more stop before we headed home - Le Clipon. The GPS lead us out to a jette on the coast. We saw about a dozen wind gliders on the water and rode over a long gravel road to a pier loaded with fishermen. We didn’t see any birds there, but it was a nice break from the riding.

Wind gliders at Le Clipon

Like I said, it probably sounds like a crazy adventure, but we had a great time. Our helmets have bluetooth headsets so we can talk to each other as we ride, and the scenery on the country roads was beautiful. If you’d like to see more photos from this trip, they’re on Flickr:

Birding and Bunkers on the French North Coast (45 photos)

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- France

Birds of Het Zwin

April 21, 2009 6:34 AM

Last week, Thomas and I rode out to the coast to visit the Het Zwin Birding Reserve. Thomas was on call – not only on Easter weekend, but also our wedding anniversary. That’s what you get when you’re the new guy… Unfortunately, he was paged and he had to spend half of the time there working on his laptop.

Still, it was a good trip, and we saw lots of new birds. Half of the park is an open coastline with wild birds and the other half has local species in cages. All around, we saw storks collecting sticks for their nests. This is definately a place that we’ll go back to again.