Sadly it was time to leave France, until we return in July.  This visit has been mostly about furnishing the house and sorting out the garden, so there have been very few 'pleasure trips'.

After shutting up the house in preparation for the trip home, we drove to the top of the Col du Soulor for a picnic lunch of roast chicken and potatoes from the local Champion supermarket.  The morning's sunshine disappeared under fast-moving cloud and the temperature dropped from 12C to 4C in less than half an hour.

We opted to drive north from Soulor via Arbéost and Arthez-d'Asson like last Thursday night.  As we drove down the steep road towards Arbéost, Anne spotted a raptor below and to our left, then another, and another ... until we had to stop and investigate.

A huge flock of what looked like Bearded Vultures (Gypaetus barbatus) (see photos) wheeled around in the valley below before all swooping in to land under a cliff, but because of the lie of the land we couldn't see what was attracting them.  

Correction: On the advice of Sébastien Ropital of La Falaise aux Vautours, what we saw were Griffon vultures (Gyps Fulvus) (Fr: Vautour fauve) not Bearded vultures. 

La Falaise aux Vautours, incidentally, is well worth a visit;  head for the village of Aste-Béon in the Vallée d'Ossau.  Website: (http://www.falaise-aux-vautours.com/).

We were at about 1260m on the road, and the valley dropped sheer-sided to about 900m.  The birds then all took to the air again, and we estimated around 50 individuals.

Over winter the farm animals are removed from these higher pastures which are deep under snow, and they will not return again for nearly 2 months.  Question:  what food species are there to support raptors in these numbers? 

When we saw the number of birds I grabbed my video camera.  Sadly this was the moment for the battery to run out.  

The longest lens to hand for my SLR had an effective focal length of 320mm, so some of the photos below are substantial blow-ups.

29 birds in the photo below

26 birds in the photo below

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