From a few days ago, in Provence: we had a free day before New Year preparations began, and with the Mistral due to kick in - but looking substantially less forceful to the south - we decided to head to the coast and spend a few hours at Martigues, a picturesque (and reassuringly scruffy) seaside fishing village on the Med.
I took the gear in case (if nothing else to photograph gulls - for another post), but didn't expect to be face to face with extremely close, completely unfazed Black-necked Grebes within a couple of minutes of parking up...
They're clearly highly tolerant of disturbance here and happily fished within a few metres of the path alongside the marina, allowing cracking views and whack-a-mole style photography opportunities. So if you're on the French Mediterranean coast in the middle of winter and fancy unrivalled views of Black-necked Grebes, you know where to go....
