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!