Discovering the Chérine Nature reserve

The ChérineThe Chérine | ©Anecdotrip.com / CC-BY-NC-SA

The Regional Nature reserve of la Chérine dates back to 1985. Its task is to protect animal and plants species of Brenne (Central France).

We start our trip at the maison de la Nature (“Nature house”). Here, we learn about the reserve’s wildlife: exhibitions, bookshop...

We can even rent binoculars, very useful to observe all the little creatures.

After the exit, we start with the Cistude pond (a cistude is a small fresh water turtle, pretty rare in Europe).

Two observatory allow us to observe them, with a nice view on the 17 hectares pond...

Then, from the House’s parking lot, we can go (on foot or with a car) to the other ponds of the reserve: the Ricot pond, the Picadon lands, the Sous pond and the Essarts pond.

In the Ricot pond, a wooden hut raises upright is waiting for us: here, with a little luck, we’ll see stags crossing the water!

The Picadon pond: beware, when it’s raining, the path is pretty muddy! We reach the pond from Saint-Michel-en-Brenne, on the D6a road.

The Sous pond: we reach it from the D44 road. From a huge observatory, we can see lots of birds on a 32 hectares’ pond. A real must for birds’ lovers!