Crested Tit

It's quite a while since I've seen a crested tit in Charente. The previous ones were were in the Braconne forest and this one was no so far away in the Foret de Bois Blanc near Gerat.
Yesterday was another superbly warm and sunny day and it tempted me to take on a 16K walk in an unfamiliar area. I chose the Chemin de Deux Sources which starts and ends in Gerat but first I took a detour to the Touvre Source itself.
This beautiful protected stretch of water held quite a few species of wildfowl, mainly mallard of course but also lots of gadwall, coots, moorhen, little grebes and mute swans and there was just one wigeon to give a bit of variety. I've seen kingfisher and little egret here before but none were on show yesterday.
It's also a good location for water pipit and a a pair dutifully turned up and perched for me in a nearby tree.
The walk proper produced several  other interesting species: a red kite was sharing a thermal with four buzzards, firecrests were plentiful, and the conifers which held the crested tit had also couple of goldcrests.
Thrushes are still thin on the ground though and I saw only singletons of mistle and song thrush. (but while speaking of thrushes, there was a solitary fieldfare in my garden yesterday.)

Yesterday's full list came to just over 40 species (but as always, with some strange absentees eg  greenfinch, linnet, cirl bunting, stonechat, dunnock and grey heron.)

The ones that did turn up were:

cormorant
mute swan
mallard
wigeon
gadwall
coot
moorhen
little grebe
buzzard
kestrel
red kite
great spotted woodpecker
green woodpecker
wood pigeon
collared dove
carrion crow
rook
jackdaw
magpie
jay
water pipit
meadow pipit
white wagtail
skylark
blue tit
great tit
crested tit
long tailed tit
firecrest
goldcrest
short toed treecreeper
nuthatch
robin
wren
starling
house sparrow
chaffinch
goldfinch
blackbird
song thrush
mistle thrush
chiffchaff