This journey to southern Brittany was my first trip with the RSPB Guildford group.

We set off very early on Sunday 8 May in our own bus. Our first stop was Parc du Marquenterre where we had a picnic lunch before spending the afternoon looking at all the great birds on offer. We then continued on to Le Havre where we spent the first night. On the second day we stoped at Pont de Normandie where we had great views of singing bluethroats and bearded tits before journeying on to our main stay, the hotel ‘Manoir de Kerdrean’ at Le Bono.

We spent the next 4 days visiting a range of brilliant birding sites including Golfe du Morbihan reserves (Pen en Toul & Séné), Lac du Grand Lieu near Nantes, La Brière marshes, Chateau de Suscinio, Duer marsh and saltpans and a bird reserves near Lorient which happened to be closed but that didn’t stop us seing both black and whiskered terns as well as redstarts and zitting cisticola.

We also managed to include two cultural highlights: the mediæval walled city of Vannes, and the World Heritage Site at Carnac with its amazing prehistoric standing stones.

All in all it was a brilliant holiday. Thank you Roger and Anna for organising it.