Well the warm weather seems to have arrived--for a while at least. The downside of that is the number of outdoor jobs that I've had to catch up on. Birding, therefore, has been mainly around the house.

The kestrels are still very noisy on the gable end but I don't know exactly where they are nesting. I heard them screaming yesterday as I was working in the garden and I watched them see off a passing black kite. I saw another black kite on the way to Angouleme later in the day.

Yesterday evening I heard a quail calling from the uncut verge just outside the house and this evening at about 10pm, stone curlews were calling out there.

I went up to the Lairiere plains at about 7.30 on Wed and two stone curlews were openly walking about in a maize field. The crop was only a few inches high. A single male hen harrier was hunting and I saw at least ten hares including one group of seven.

Orioles and cuckoos are singing daily and I watched a young nightingale being fed in the garden today.

The moorhen on the village pond seem to have only two young this year. The water level seems low and I suspect it may dry up again this summer as it did last year. That was the first time that it had done so since 1976 according to my French neighbour.

Other nesting birds around the house are black redstart and blackbird. Greenfinch are around daily, feeding on what's left of the fat balls. They are noisy but I do not know if they are nesting. Great tit are perhaps nesting in a hole in the stable wall.

Cirl bunitng do not appear to be common at present but pair of firecrest were singing in the garden this afternoon.

A very interesting observation from a follower of this site was of a flock of about six bee-eaters near St Angeau this week. This is a species which I have yet to see in Charente.