Post-Ornithos, a digital magazine for birdwatchers
Only feature articles likely to be of interest to non-French readers are available in English. I apologise for not offering my entire website in English at this time.
Articles translated into English can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking on the associated images.
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ORNITHOLOGY
Did White-tailed Eagle really breed in France in the past ?
by Laurent Vallotton, Christian Riols & Marc Duquet
A recent article published in the Swiss journal Nos Oiseaux provided a detailed overview of the historical status of White-tailed Eagle around Lake Geneva and in south-western Europe (Vallotton 2025). The article was prompted by the eagle release programme, now in its fourth consecutive year in Sciez (Haute-Savoie), on the French shore of Lake Geneva. This project is presented as a reintroduction, based on a nesting that is said to have taken place in the Ripaille forest in Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) in November 1892 (Bourdillon 1892), although the authenticity of this nesting has been disputed by several successive authors and has therefore never been mentioned…
To read more, click on the White-tailed Eagle >>>
ORNITHOLOGY
Why are there so many Glossy Ibis in France (and Western Europe) ?
by Philippe J. Dubois
During a trip in Portugal in early November 2025, I had the opportunity to visit EVOA (Espaço de Visitação e Observação de Aves), in the Tagus Estuary Nature Reserve, not far from Lisbon. The heart of the site consists of a few ponds, where large numbers of teals winter at this time of year. To get there, you have to drive more than 13 km along an excellent track that crosses huge rice fields and marshes that are more or less flooded at this time of year. It was there that I had the opportunity to
observe a very large wintering population of the Glossy Ibis. The birds, which are very mobile.…
<<< To read more, click on the Glossy Ibis
ORNITHOLOGY
A summary of the breeding of Pallid Harrier in France and Europe
by Baptiste Boutilleux, Christian Boutrouille, Gaëtan Cavitte & Michel Antoine Réglade
Every spring, the ornithological and naturalist association GON coordinates a network for surveying and monitoring nesting harrier pairs in the vast cereal plains of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. This monitoring is also carried out in a large part of France where areas favourable to the nesting of these birds of prey remain, and hundreds of people have been participating in it every year for more than 40 years (Millon 2022). It is within this framework that breeding pairs of Pallid Harrier (Circus macrourus) have been detected in France since 2020, preceded since the late 1990s by a gradual increase in migratory flows…
To read more, click on the Pallid Harrier >>>
ORNITHOLOGY
The Cattle Egret that dreamed of being a swan
by Jean-Pierre Toumazet
On 29 July 2024, my son Lucas and I observed and photographed the strange behaviour of a cattle egret in Lussat, in the Creuse department. The little heron arrived in flight and landed on the surface of the Landes pond, before starting to swim like a duck, or rather a swan given its plumage! It was not bathing but actually swimming, as it could not touch.…
<<< To read more, click on the Cattle Egret
ORNITHOLOGY
An annotated list of Nearctic passerines recorded in France
by Marc Duquet
This new article devoted to vagrant Neartic passerines (and a few non-passerines: cuckoos, swifts, and nightjars) in Europe lists the species that have already been observed in France. It will be updated regularly as new sightings are reported. In addition, an inventory of other Nearctic passerines seen elsewhere in Europe, and therefore likely to arrive in France one day, will be presented shortly…
To read more, click on the Black-and-white Warbler >>>
ORNITHOLOGY
Influx of immature Greater Flamingo in eastern France
by Pierre Crouzier & Marc Duquet
The range of Greater Flamingo extends across the coastal lagoons and large lakes of Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. Around the Mediterranean, it breeds sporadically in Spain, Camargue, Italy (including Sardinia), Cyprus and Greece; it bred in Crimea in 2017 and attempted to do so in Bulgaria in 2023 (Salvador et al. 2024). In France, the species breeds in a single colony, historically located on the Fangassier pond in the Camargue (Bouches-du-Rhône), but which has recently moved…
<<< To read more, click on the Greater Flamingo
IDENTIFICATION
How many Pied Flycatchers are there in my garden ?
by Marc Duquet
If you are lucky enough to see Pied Flycatcher stopping over during their migration in late summer and autumn, either near your home or even in your garden, you may have wondered whether it is the same bird that stays for several days, or if there is a new one every morning, as I did. To find out, I have been using a small system for identifying pied flycatchers individually for several years, which works rather well…
To read more, click on the Pied Flycatcher >>>
ORNITHOLOGY
Very probable breeding of Pygmy Cormorant in eastern France in 2024
by Pierre Crouzier
On July 27, 2024, my brother Marc and I were surprised to see an adult-type Pygmy Cormorant flying away from the pond we were exploring, southeast of the Dombes. We quickly found it again on a small pond that was difficult to access and had a profile that was quite atypical for the Dombes: overgrown with dead branches and submerged leafy bushes…
<<< To read more, click on the Pygmy Cormorant
ORNITHOLOGY
Origin of Nearctic passerines recorded in Europe
by Marc Duquet
Every fall, mainly in October, Nearctic passerines wander into Europe, primarily Ireland and Great Britain. In France, it is mainly the islands of Ouessant and Sein, at the tip of Brittany, that receive these birds from North America, but a few individuals sometimes travel as far as the French coast, from Hauts-de-France to the Basque Country. Why and how do such small birds cross the Atlantic Ocean from North America to Europe? Which part of the North American continent…
To read more, click on the Baltimore Oriole >>>
ORNITHOLOGY
Inland records of Cory’s Shearwater in France
by Marc Duquet
On August 30, 2025, Andrew Butler found and photographed a Cory’s Shearwater Calonectris borealis on Lake Maine, in Angers-Bouchemaine (Maine-et-Loire); The bird was observed until August 31 at 2 p.m., when it flew north (Alain Fossé, in litt.). In some of the photos taken by the many observers who came to see the bird, a metal ring is visible on its right leg. Alain Fossé reports that the bird alternated between periods…
<<< To read more, click on the Cory’s Shearwater
ORNITHOLOGY
Stone curlew breeding on an industrial roof in eastern France
by Dominique Tissier, Jean-Yves Chetaille, Camille Miro, Paul Adlam & Steve Augiron
In June 2024, a Stone Curlew chick was discovered on the roof of a warehouse (covering an area of approximately 3 hectares) in the Chesnes-Nord logistics zone, in the municipality of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, Isère. The presence of a pair in and around this warehouse had been known since 2016, with breeding…
To read more, click on the Stone Curlew >>>
