last full day for a bit

I'm off to the UK for a month or so and so there will be no live news from Charente. I'm sure the birds will keep doing their business without me though.

Today I watched a crow chase off a black kite that was passing over the house.

I've seen quite a few swifts seemingly heading south over the past few days. They are possibly none breeders which are already doing the return migration-or just swifts which are a bit fed up with this summer's weather.

Flycatcherd

The curious weather continues with lots of cloud cover and some rain But I managed to get in a bike ride over the plains this morning. A pair of hen harriers were circling together andIi had very close views of what was probably a different male some time later. One or two quail were calling. There was no sign of the stone curlew but their field which I had taken to be a sunflower one has grown quickly into quite high maize--so much for my farming knowledge.

I heard my first cuckoo for about a week as they seemed to have stopped calling but Irv tells me this isn't so in Charente Maritime. A singing woodlark near La Tache was the first I had heard for some time.

Near home, I watched a family of nuthatches. In fact quite a few birds seemed to be out in family groups today.

Lunch at La Chapelle wasn't meant to be a birding occasion but it surprisingly produced 3 new species for the year. A pair of spotted flycatchers were feeding by the Charente river, a kingfisher appeared on a few occasions and I had a brief view of a lesser spotted woodpecker.

In all, 45 species were recorded today---but no robin or dunnock!

New stone curlew

A 7am bike ride allowed me to almost beat the promised storm but I got wet just ten minutes from home. The black clouds and the lightning which were coming in from the west were very menacing but impressive and I obviously dallied two long while watching them.

I unintentionally flushed a stone curlew form close to the farm track near Chatenet. As with the Lairiere birds, it was in a sunflower field. A pair of corn buntings were very noisy nearby. I think I must have been close to their nest. I saw another pair later near Lairiere.

My friend Irv reports seeing a very large flock of black kites --perhaps 50--- circling above a vineyard in the east of the department .

the sun's back---for a bit at least

Well what a miserable last week in May that was; wet and cold. On the first day of June we still had to light the fire.

But today started to warm up and encouraged me to go for an early morning bike ride around the beautiful Bonnieure valley. i saw over forty species and the most interesting were:

A single cattle egret, appropriately in a field with two cows. This species is not very common around here and usually encountered on migration.

A marsh tit. Again, not often seen or heard around here but I have come across them before in the same wood near St Angeau and also in the Braconne forest.

A dunnock. Surprisingly, this common bird seems to make itself very scarce in the immediate vicinity and rarely visit my garden for instance.

A family party of at least 9 long-tailed tits.

Several house martins which were sat in the road in St Angeau, collecting mud for their nests.

I don't know if great spotted woodpeckers include cherries in their diet but one of them seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time in my cherry trees. As with all the other fruit trees, the crop seems to be especially good this year.

Apart from the birds, I watched a pair of martens at close quarters. This unpopular mammal is nevertheless very attractive to look at, almost teddy bear like with its chestnut fur and striking white V on its chest. They were unaware of my presence as they crawled around the lower part of a large chestnut tree. I was alerted to their presence by a harsh, jay-like call which I had not heard before.