Wild(esque) Paris: Bois de Boulogne

Paris manages to squeeze over 2 million people into about 41 square miles. By population, that makes it less dense than Manhattan (about 56,000 per square mile, compared to about 71,000). But with thousands of tourists visiting every day (so far there does not seem to be an off-season) and millions of workers commuting in from the suburbs, even the homely 16th Arr. can feel pretty crowded at times.

Luckily we're very close to the Bois de Boulogne, about 2,000 acres of mostly wooded parkland, trails and man-made lakes. The forested area in which it sits has been used and re-used for every imaginable purpose, including general brigandry, dueling, royal hunting preserves, monastic communities, and bivouac sites for conquering British and Russian troops following the rout of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Emperor Napoleon III transformed the forest into a public park in the 1850s--although conquering Prussian troops would briefly revive the bivouacking tradition at the end of the Franco-Prussian war.

Like anywhere in Paris, you never feel exactly alone in the Bois. There are always joggers, cyclists, picnickers and casual strollers, but the size of the parc was a way of spreading them out. Two racetracks (the Hippodrome de Longchamp for "regular" horse racing and the Hippodrome d'Auteuil for steeplechase racing) and the French Open's Stade Roland Garros also remind you that you are still within Paris' orbit. But it's also not had to find a bit of tranquility in the woods and the edges of Lac Superieur and Lac Inferieur. If you squint, you could be in the the countryside.

A pagoda commemorating Emperor Napoleon III, the public park's patron

I'm advised that the Bois is a good birding spot. Maybe. I've seen plenty of park birds there (e.g., mallards, coots, robins), and a less common black woodpecker. I'll know better once spring really arrives.

Grey heron at Lac Inferieur

A false spring day in February at Parc de Boulogne-Edmond de Rothschild. Blossoms at 5 celsius.