Late May

It's been a pretty wet May with some storms and hail thrown in so the birding highlights have been rather intermittent but here's a brief round-up.
A reed warbler has been singing on the Son-sonette in the same patch of reeds as the last few years so there is probably a breeding pair. I have also heard Cetti's down there but have seen nothing of the black woodpecker since my last report.
The Fôret de Belaire has been reasonably productive with plenty of singing species including garden warbler, golden oriole, cuckoo, bullfinch, treecreeper, melodious warbler, Bonelli's warbler, nightjar and firecrest but there have been no wood warblers to date.
I have seen a pair of stonecurlew on the plains on several occasions but their regular field was being fertilised yesterday so they were absent.
Red backed shrikes have settled into several of the breeding sites in which I located them last year and black kites have appeared regularly but I've yet to come across honey buzzard, hobby or Montague's harrier (or quail for that matter).
A trip to the lakes of the high Charente turned up several common sandpipers and great crested grebes but I did not see any of the terns which have been reported there.
Nesting birds have been busy around the garden and house: kestrel, black redstart, blackbird, mistle thrush, firecrest, house sparrow, starling, wood pigeon, goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, and tits though none of the latter have used the nest boxes. ( And curiously a pair of hares have been dashing around the lawn.)
The cherries are late ripening but the birds are stealing them already.

Nightjar and Garden Warbler

I have not posted for a week or so partly because I popped down to Spain for a few days and partly because the wet weather on my return has not been too conducive to birding. Plenty of rain was still falling today but I managed to avoid the showers this morning and had a walk in the Forêt de Belaire after first checking out the plains near the eoliens.
It was only 11C at 8.30 pm so I watched a solitary stone curlew from the comfort of the car (and with the heated seat fully on as the car hadn't yet warmed up). It was DH Lawrence who said that you never see a bird which feels sorry for itself, and the stone curlew certainly appeared more stoical than me.
Shortly afterwards I passed by the bio farm and heard a red backed shrike calling from a hedge that had been used for nesting last year but I saw neither him nor the yellowhammer which was singing nearby.
The forest was wet underfoot but everything was green and springlike. On the warbler front, lots of chiffchaffs were singing along with a few blackcaps and whitethroats but it was little time before I tracked down the repetitive trill of the Bonelli's warblers. There was no sound of wood warblers but the disappointment was mitigated by hearing and then briefly watching a garden warbler, the first for me this year (and very possibly the last as they are none too common).
Short-toed treecreepers were surprisingly common, however, and some were carrying insects back to their young. Occasionally a nuthatch called and for a few moments I watched a bright male redstart.
Although a male bullfinch was calling in the same area that I saw him last time, I could not catch sight of him before he finally moved further away. The noisiest birds by far were the cuckoos and orioles and I occasionally caught flashes of them without really trying.
I had heard my first nightjar of the Spring from a wood behind my house yesterday evening but a louder and closer bird briefly churred as I returned to where I had parked my vehicle. I will make an evening to that location soon.

For the record and for those who might want to wander from Charente, the brief Pyrenean visit gave me a few new birds for 2016 including griffon and Egyptian vultures, wrynecks, blue rock thrush, rock sparrow, dipper, crag martin, scops owl, pied flycatcher, chough, raven and booted eagle