That's a Lot of Birds

Our weekend travels took us from Paris to Mont-St Michel and then on to Perros-Guirec, a tiny city on the coast of Bretagne (Brittany). Not surprisingly, this area of France shares a lot of history with its neighbor across the Channel, and in fact there is a lively debate as to whether or not the Arthurian legends took place in modern day England or modern day Brittany.

We stayed at our friend Benedicte's apartment in Perros-Guirec. One of the last things we did on Sunday was take a boat trip out into the Ocean to visit some of the islands which make up part of a large protected bird sanctuary. As we approached the main island, shown below, it looked like the rock was colored with a bunch of small, white dots.

However, when we got closer, it became shockingly apparent that every single one of the "white dots" was in fact a bird! The place is literally swarming with them, and it is definitely the single-most bizarre thing I have ever seen related to birds in my life.
We were told that the birds come to this particular island to breed every year, and that there are about 17,000 breeding pairs on the island. The birds are called "les fous de Bassan" (the crazies of Bassan), crazy apparently because they hurtle towards the water at breakneck speeds in order to catch fish. They look a little like seagulls but they have yellow heads.

French for the Day: It's officially a holiday in France today, "la Fête du Travail" (Labor Day; "travail"= work) which everybody has off (though I am about to head into lab in a few moments).

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Random Karate Kid Link for the Day: http://gethimabodybag.ytmnd.com/