Saturday, 26 April 2014

Wheatears and Swifts et al

Today Spring finally arrived for me because the wheatears turned up ! Two males and a female were in ploughed fields on the plains this afternoon and beautiful as ever they were. The males were in the same field of view as a solitary stone curlew.

The weather has been unsettled though and there was considerable but needed rain yesterday. But just before it arrived I saw my first swifts of 2014 above Pont d'Agris and a single bird was flying high over the plains this morning.

A golden oriole has been singing in the woods near my house for the last three days but I have yet to see it and the same goes for turtle doves which I've heard purring yesterday and the day before.
Two white storks were flying above the Tardoire yesterday and there were three little egrets by the Bandiat and one at Fougère with a cattle egret on Wednesday. Five greenshank there showed that my previous note about the last of the waders was premature.

A flock of about ten blue headed wagtails were with cattle at Agris and whitethroats have suddenly become quite common in various locations. The song of the nightingale is now just about as frequent as that of the blackcap.

A common sandpiper was at Touvre today but nothing else that was unusual.

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