2nd July 2024 – Marais du Brennegi, Brittany, France

Supposedly the Marais du Brennegi is a great area for bird watching.

“The ancient salt marshes, sandy peninsula and large mudflats offer a superb environment for observing birds. Among the breeding birds, one can observe Kentish Plover, which generally settle on the large sandy beaches.”

Well, we had a lovely walk but I managed only one bird photo (of a blackbird!) and only one butterfly in focus (although we did see small coppers and a marbled white).

Blackbird

Speckled wood

However, all along our walk we heard skylarks singing, so we are certainly not complaining. Perhaps, though, they were complaining about the grey skies and the chill wind!

As the French say, “faute de grives on mange des merles” (Beggars can’t be choosers). Well, I certainly wasn’t going to start eating blackbirds so I turned to photographing the flora of the shore line.

Matthiola sinuata, commonly known as sea stock

The marram grass and the dunes are well protected here

Centaurium erythraea commonly known as European Centaury

Allium sphaerocephalon – round-headed garlic

Is this (and does this?) Heal-All (prunella vulgaris)

In the afternoon we visited “Les alignements de Carnac” – the most extensive group of conserved megaliths in Europe.

The stone alignments in Carnac were erected in Neolithic times. They are the most famous and most impressive examples of standing stones from this period, with some 3000 standing stones.

We didn’t see them all but that was probably because we had had enough of the chill north-west wind

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