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Video length: 3 min
Normandy: discovering the wildlife of a huge nature reserve
Normandy: discovering the wildlife of a huge nature reserve – (France 2)
The Seine estuary is the largest nature reserve in Normandy. It extends over more than 8,000 hectares and is home to numerous species.
At the foot of the chimneys of the port of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), the Seine estuary is almost an intruder. The largest nature reserve in Normandy extends over 8,500 hectares of marshes and meadows along the Seine. An enclave of nature that an amateur photographer has been traveling for 30 years, meeting the 300 species of birds that live there. “The most beautiful thing I saw was an osprey fishing”he remembers.
A reserve created at the end of the 1990s
Nearly 30,000 birds come to live near this marsh bordered by reeds in winter. Each year, reserve employees take advantage of this period to carry out counts. “We are really on a highway area, on the migratory route of birds. And so certain species will come here to spend the winter”, explains Faustine Simon, project manager at the Observatory. The reserve was created in the late 1990s with the aim of returning this area to nature. Human intervention is very limited. To maintain the meadows, 53 horses are left completely free.
