Cranes

The return migration of the cranes seems to have been rather delayed this year possibly because of the mild sunny weather that we have been experiencing. Small flocks have been moving for at least a week but around 2000 birds passed over my house on the 3rd and 4th of November.

Since the last of the wheatears and whinchats finally disappeared on Oct 4th after their protracted stay on the plains, autumn migration has not been dramatic for me with little to report other than a solitary golden plover and a a couple of late house martins.

Of more interest though were a pair of peregrines which I found near Confolens. The location also yielded my first coal tit sightings for a couple of years and I watched a great white egret fishing in the Vienne river there but numerous reports of this species in the Charente have occurred recently while a friend in Fontenille reported four cattle egrets this week.

Speaking of the Vienne, but not strictly in the Charente Departement, I saw my first dipper in these parts close to Bellegarde airport. I had an hour or two to spare between dropping off one set of friends before another pair arrived and spent the time watching a stretch of the river from the D47 bridge. The bird obligingly stayed in view for some twenty minutes.

There have been some interesting recent reports of vagrant birds recently including a wallccreeper at Larochefoucauld chateau and another for several days at the chateau at Saint Germaine de Confolens.
Needless to say, I failed to locate either!

Two Wrynecks

A couple of corrections to my last post: the wryneck doesn't seem to have moved on as I've seen presumably the same bird in the same sunflowers on several occasions now including today. Also l checked the records regarding bluethroat sightings and the one that I saw this week is the fourth and not the second one this year.
Curiously, the other wryneck which I saw at Lac de Chaban was also still there when I visited today. It seems,therefore, that many passage birds make extended stopovers during migration. This is upheld by the wheatears and whinchats which have been hanging around the same two fields for over a week now. The wheatear count today was a remarkable 22 although the whinchats had gone down to 8.
Other notable birds I've seen over the last few days are a male marsh harrier near the local eoliens, four greenshanks and two green sandpipers at the lakes today along with four black-headed gulls, and  a pair of tawny owls in my garden.

Bluethroat

The small sunflower field which I referred to in my last post still held a dozen or s migrating whinchats yesterday but the wryneck seemed to have moved on. An equally delightful bird had replaced it though, a male bluethroat. This is only the second one that I have encountered in Charente though they nest in Charente Maritime and I think it's only the second individual reported in Charente this year.
The sunflowers also held at least one willow warbler, a few stonechats and around 40 linnets.
Another pied flycatcher was in my garden but this one was strangely silent.
The hedges at the bio farm have not yet produced much this autumn but a couple of male common redstarts and a whinchats were there yesterday.

Wrynecks et al and Return Migration

It seems that the doldrums are behind us and movement is under way.
Wrynecks and black terns have been the highlights of the last few days for me but there have also been wheatears, whinchats and osprey.
The nearby plains contain many large fields of sunflowers but migrating birds for some reason have favoured just one small, detached triangle bordering the Artenac to La Tâche road. Seven whinchats were perched prettily on top of the plants there earlier in the week and that number rose to thirteen yesterday. Along with them were several stonechats, a small flock of linnets and a couple of willow warblers.
I've also managed to find two wheatears on the plains this week but they were making use of the open ground of course. On the earlier occasion mentioned above I was fortunate to flush a group of four woodlark from the path before they took refuge in the sunflowers.
Wrynecks have eluded me for several years in Charente but two turned up on consecutive days this week. One was a very obliging individual which sat still for some ten minutes on the top of a sunflower amid the whinchats, the other was more skulking and in a bush near the dam at Lac de Chaban.
I had taken a trip to the latter to look for migrating black terns and was rewarded with good views of three of these delicate birds dipping into the water. On two occasions while watching them an osprey passed over carrying a small fish. The only wader that I saw there was a common sandpiper but there have been reports of green and wood sandpiper and ruff from that location and the neighbouring Lac Lavaud.
Small flocks of yellow wagtails have also been on the Lairière plains and a hobby was flying around there earlier this week. Large numbers of swallows and some  house martins have been moving south although at least a hundred of the latter were still flying around the church square in Chasseneuil on Monday and some were still visiting nests.
The annual passage of pied flycatchers seems well underway as they have been reported from various locations including one in my garden.
Today I may go looking for the elusive little bustard as there were reports of small flocks on the plains west of here yesterday.
The weather is still curiously unsettled with some hot spells, cool snaps and the occasional welcome shower.

August Doldrums

The rain has mainly abated and the temperature is more or less back to normal during August but this month, as always, is a pretty uneventful one for birds. It's not just that there are fewer birds to view, there is also very little to hear as most birdsong is to do with attracting mates and defending territory during the breeding season and all this has of course mainly come to an end. It's not entirely silent though; as I write this a black redstart is doing its loud and incessant tutting close by and a collared dove is calling from the wood but what's missing is the the birdsong. In the course of a two hour bike ride today I heard quitea few species calling but not a single skylark, blackbird or chaffinch.
For the sake of those, perhaps visitors to Charente, who want to know what to expect in midsummer inn these parts, here is a resumé of that bike ride:
As l left the house mid morning a black redstart was my first bird along with the inevitable house sparrows quickly followed by a green woodpecker calling. Plenty of swallows were flying around as I approached Saint Angeau where a few house martins mixed in with them. A quick pause at the Bonnieure bridge produced a grey wagtail as it often does and then a family of white wagtails was added to the list as I moved back into open country and dropped down towards the dry bed of the Tardoire. A few stonechats were on the power lines and the occasional starling was flying about before a small group of noisy jays put in an appearance.
It was not till I approached Coulgens that I made contact with any further passerines. A narrow strip of woodland held a flock of long-tailed, great and blue tits along with a robin and a (silent) warbler high in the canopy which was probably a willow warbler rather than the much commoner chiffchaff.
It wasn't until this point that blackbird and goldfinch put in an appearance and then a cirl bunting which flew up from the path. The common chaffinch delayed his entrance until La Rochette as did the wren and greenfinch..
Larger birds except for crows and wood pigeons had been even thinner on the ground but I managed to add magpie, kestrel and buzzard in quick succession and that was about it until the family of moorhens greeted me on the pond next my house.
But if this seems a rather underwhelming list take some heart from the fact that elsewhere in the department the following are some of the birds which have been reported in recent days:
Bee eater
Peregrine
Woodchat shrike
Grey partridge
Spotted flycatcher
Pied flycatcher
Wood sandpiper
Short toed eagle
Osprey
Honey buzzard
Sitting cisticola
Wheatear
Turtle dove

As always, it's a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Late July.....and More Rain

Not just more rain but very much on the cool side as well!
Generally one doesn't expect too much that surprises by the time mid summer arrives and this year is no exception but here are a few observations.
The most interesting of these was a brief view of a peregrine as it flew across the upper stretch of the Bonnieure. I think this is only the second time that I've seen this precise in Charente.
All the grain is now in and the ground-nesting birds which have survived the combines can occasionally be seen or heard in the stubble fields. A stone curlew flew across the road near Romefort today and a few quail were calling from the plains as I cycled across yesterday. Meanwhile, the odd black kite scavengers for victims.
I came across a flock of five common sandpipers on the Charente near Mansle today and kingfisher was on a stretch of the river near Lichère.
On my local cycling excursions I am still coming across the occasional singing tree pipit and yellowhammers are more common on some days than cirl's while red back shrikes number at least 8 pairs within 10k or so of my house.
Sadly, after his earlier singing, there has recently been no sign of the reed warbler near Valence and I have yet to come across a bonelli's warbler this year. The nightjars are surely in the nearby forests but I have not made an evening visit to find out.....perhaps next week if it gets warmer.

July, Rain! and Rock Sparrow

 It's been a miserable week weatherise. I've seen no official figures but we must have had getting on for six inches in old money judging from the full containers in the garden. The fields are full of half harvested fields which have not been touched for a week now and I presume the farmers are as grumpy as the birds which are trying to shelter their broods.

I've quoted D H Lawrence before when he said that you never see a bird that feels sorry for itself and so, grumpy or not, they all seem to be getting on with it. Swallows, house martins and swifts were all flying low today as they fed busily over the stubble and many of them seemed to be young birds practising their fly-catching skills. Red backed shrikes were perched upright on the hedgerows as I cycled past (there was a gap in the downpour this morning) and corn buntings were already gathering in post breeding flocks with at least 15 in the sunflowers.

Rock sparrows are not an easy bird to find in Charente, in fact I can recall seeing the species just once before this summer, but at least one pair appears to be breeding in the small settlement of Galvert just a couple of kilometres from my house.

For the record, it's still possible to find about forty species of birds within a couple of hours but nightingales have now largely stopped singing so are hard to locate. Orioles are still plentiful though and I saw three hoopoes last week. Other less common species that are turning up occasionally are black kites, stone curlews and hen harriers. 

Apart from the birds, it's been delight to have posts of close views of hares and red squirrels during the last few weeks.

Scops Owl and Reed Warbler

After a day of much needed rain last weekend, the weather has turned rather showery and unseasonably cool. Nevertheless....
Scops owl are categorised as 'peu frequente' summer visitors to Charente which is the next group down from 'rare' on the Charente Nature site but they are pretty hard to come by. Their sonar-like call is very distinctive although it can easily be confused with that of a midwife toad so if you think you have located one make sure that is coming from an elevated position. (I once tracked down a likely suspect which was calling in the dark to echoes coming up from the village well.)
However, this time it was an owl rather than the unusual amphibian which I heard calling in the early evening from close to a friend's house in the upper Bonnieure valley and she told me that she regularly hears two of them there.
Reed warblers are not much more common here in my experience unless you can find any remaining reeds in our department; most have been replaced by poplar plantations. I have referred to a small patch on the Son-Sonnette in previous posts which usually hosts a pair or two in the summer and a male was rattling away there last week.

Quail and Spotted Flycatcher

I'm back from the UK (where I was treated to double figures of dippers in the Derbyshire dales) and have enjoyed a very hot and sunny end to May in Charente. My morning birding often takes me along the Tardoire valley on my bicycle and this is always a good area for red backed shrikes. So far this year I have located four breeding pairs between SaintAngeau and La Rochette (and another three pairs outside this valley) so it seems to be a good year for this species.
The Tardoire's waters in this stretch of the valley disappeared underground some weeks ago although I had the curious experience earlier in the month of standing in the virtually dry river bed near La Rochette and watching the water rising again and spreading like an incoming tide. The river's tree- lined course is still favoured by plenty of birds, though, and it was here that I saw my first spotted flycatcher of 2017.
It was while stopping to look at one of the shrikes today that I heard a quail calling from close by in a wheat field. Experience has taught me that it is a futile activity to try to actually get to see a calling bird so I just listened for a while.
While on the subject of birds calling, melodious warblers are particularly noisy at the moment, including one in my garden. Nightingales are still throbbing away, cuckoos and corn buntings have quietened down considerably, orioles are fluting all over the place and turtle doves are purring everywhere but I have not heard a hoopoe since mid month.
The good weather has meant that much of the hay is already in and as always I wonder how this has affected ground nesting birds. The quickly growing crops elsewhere are making it difficult to locate stone curlews but a pair were still showing themselves on the plains this week.
Along the GR 36 west of Saint Angeau at least two yellowhammers were singing yesterday along with a tree pipit.

Hobby and Shrikes

It's mid May and almost all of the regular migrants have now put in an appearance. Orioles have been here for some time as have swifts and this week I saw my first red backed shrikes (both of them, dazzling males) and a hobby which was being mobbed by swallows.
A few species have eluded me although they have been reported elsewhere in Charente; I am still waiting for a spotted flycatcher and a honey buzzard  to turn up and with far less confidence for a wryneck. An even remoter possibility is catching sight of bee-eaters which have turned up in the south of the department for the second year running.
 A relative common species in the forests here is the inconspicuous bonelli's warbler but I have yet to come across one this year and today I am off to (a rainy)England for a week so I'll have to wait till I get back.
A serin is singing noisily outside the door as I write this. I won't see one of them in the UK either.

Osprey and Waders

A trip up to the lakes yesterday produced fine views of an osprey carrying a fish, five common sandpipers and three greenshanks. A brief glimpse of three gulls disappearing behind a slight rise was probably that of black-headed as some had been reported recently but there was no sign of any whiskered terns which had also been seen there. A couple of migrating whinchats were perched on a fence wire and whitethroats were plentiful.
Back at La Poterie, a male common redstart has been a colourful visitor to the garden but the nearby nightingale seems to have stopped singing; a cuckoo has been calling incessantly all week however.
On the nearby plains the occasional wheatear and whinchat are still passing through and corn buntings are singing get determinedly.

Montague's Harrier, Whinchats and Stone Curlew

I know that I should be calling a stone curlew a thick knee but I think the old name sounds better. Anyway, I saw my first of the year yesterday. It was wandering around on the nearby skyline not far from the turbines. There was no sign of a partner but I hope one turns up as there is usually at least one breeding pair up there. There is not much bare ground for them to settle on this year though as a good proportion of the plains is already taken up with well advanced winter wheat. One would like to think that this might lure the bustards back.
In the same area and fighting against the stiff NE breeze which has been spoiling the sunny days for over a week, was a hunting male montague's harrier, a summer visitor which I failed th catch sight of last year.
The whinchats in their fresh plumage were a delight to see as they perched very obligingly along an electric fence line at the bio farm.
Back at La Poterie a hoopoe has been calling from somewhere in the village and a nightingale is singing by the pond. Serin, firecrest, blackcap and whitethroat are all singing in the garden itself while blackbird, robin, black redstart, wood pigeon, greenfinch, house sparrows, starlings, tits and kestrels are already nest-building or feeding young.

Mid April Roundup

The glorious sunny weather continues and the migrants continue to trickle in. I have now seen three individual wheatears including  one that was close to some new houses in Saint Angeau.  A male whitethroat was on the plains a couple of days back and a female merlin which I watched there was presumably on its way northwards. Nightingales and cuckoos are quite plentiful now but I have seen only one hoopoe and heard another in our village. The tiny but noisy serins are singing everywhere including in my garden.
The most recent arrival for me was a melodious warbler which was chattering away from the same piece of scrub in which a nightingale, a chiffchaff and a blackcap were also singing.

The walls of my house have already acquired their usual nesting population of kestrels, starlings, house sparrows, robins and black redstarts but to date the tits seem to have shown just a passing interest in the nest boxes.

Wheatear and Tree Pipit

Well, the wheatear didn't take long in response to my last post as a solitary male was waiting for me on the Lairière plains early this morning. My bike ride took me on to La Tâche where a tree pipit was singing and then delicately parachuting down from his high perch....and so two more spring migrants have made their appearance.

As always, a few other species which were missing from yesterday's tally put in an appearance today: a yellowhammer was singing near La Poterie, a pair of mallards were on the village pond (these are wild ones and not the tamer ones that we have fed for the last couple of years) and from the house I watched a male hen harrier quartering the fields. Several swallows were also around as was a solitary kingfisher and a white wagtail by the Charente near Luxé.

A parting comment on yesterday's post is that song thrushes were challenging blackcaps as the commonest songster today.

Nightingale and White Stork

The Spring of 2017 is the first one for me when I heard a nightingale before I saw a wheatear but then we live in strange times. The bird was singing near the Tardoire near La Rochette and the stork was circling above the same river near Fougère.
Except for a wettish weekend, it's been a hot sunny end to March and April 3 was another hot day. Despite the absence of any flooding, I took a ride down to the Tardoire valley in search of early migrants. Besides the nightingale and the stork I had a two other firsts for this year, a male common redstart in Saint Angeau and a hoopoe near Saint Colombe.
Singing serins and black redstarts seemed to be everywhere although blackcaps are by far the commonest songster (including one in my garden) and it's a delight to hear the near cacophony at times from so many species defending a territory or seeking a mate. All in all, 43 species came my way today and only the moorhen was making use of any water.

Speaking of which.... I mentioned at the end of my last post that I would take a trip up to the Charente lakes. It proved to be a very successful one despite the absence of the reported little gull. The ducks were distant and I had not taken my scope but I clearly picked out three male garganey among the mallard and wigeon and also came across three shelduck which were resting on the lakeside during their migration along with four shovelers which were gliding on the water. The only waders that were around were two green sandpipers while other birds of note were a teal, several great crested grebes and a black kite.
If I can get away from the garden, which demands a lot of attention at this time of year, I will visit the area again this week as according to reports its waters have already attracted several passing waders including avocets and black winged stilt, and ospreys have been seen on several occasions.

Swallows and Barn Owls

Today was dry and sunny enough for me to mow the lawn, an activity not really conducive to birding,   but I did hear a firecrest singing at the end of the garden and also flushed a moorhen which had wandered up from the village pond.
Later in the day I spent some time driving along the D27 which runs past my house. Driving eastward in the afternoon I saw three swallows chasing each other near Saint Mary and the in the evening while driving westward I saw three separate barn owls between La Poterie and Villefagnan.
The only other bird of note today was a male hen harrier near Lairière.
Reports of little gulls seen up at the lakes of Haute Charente might send me up that way tomorrow..

Back in France March 2017

Sunshine streams through the window as I write this but rain is forecast from midday and its predicted to continue until the weekend. All of which may explain why I took an extended break to warmer climes and different birds. California, Arizona, Hawaii and Tenerife are now behind me and I've started surveying Charente again.
First, the birds that have already arrived for the new breeding season: chiffs, black redstarts and blackcaps are plentiful and I found three swallows, a few meadow pipits and a little ringed plover in the Tardoire valley along with a few late cranes which have recently passed over northwards. But that's about it up to now!
There are two reasons for this, one is that it's still quite early in the year and the other is that despite the aforementioned rain there has not been enough of it while I've been away to flood the rivers. The migrating little ringed plover which I saw this week was making the best of a tiny pool in the middle of a field which in some Springs is completely inundated and a visit to the Bandiat revealed that not only is it not over its banks but that it clearly hasn't been so (yet) this year.
The waders and wildfowl which are not stopping off in the river valleys close to me have, however, been reported from the permanent lakes and ponds of Charente so I might take a trip to the high Charente once the rain stops.
Still, it is Spring! and the song of the blackbird is delighting us as always, woodpeckers are drumming, a robin is nesting by my back door and there's a chorus every morning. Things are quickly getting better.

Waterside Birds

The figure of under 50 species by mid Jan which I mentioned in my previous post seemed rather paltry so I took a trip to the Touvre in order to up it slightly through the addition of a few birds which like a wet habitat. 
And so I quickly added eight to my total:

Mute swan
Coot
Little grebe
Gadwall
Kingfisher
Little egret
Great white egret
Cormorant

For those who don't know it, The Touvre is an interesting river; it makes a surprising emergence (the second largest in France)from its underground course during which it has collected waters from the Bandiat and the Tardoire and then flows to the Charente at Angouleme. Its steady water temperaure have made it useful to man over the centuries including for the National Foundry which takes advantage of its coolness for producing military grade metals.
The birds are best viewed from the banks at The Sources themselves or a little downstream at Merignac where there is a handy parking area near the bridge.

Grey wagtail and several chiffchaffs were also around during my visit but I'd seen both of these earlier in the month.

A bonus bird on the way back was a male hen harrier near Agris which pushed 2017's total to a slightly more respectable 58.

Slow January

There is still no sign of any winter influx of passerines which means that by mid January my species count for this year is still just short of 50. The finch flocks are made up of either chaffinch, goldfinch or linnet with few mixed ones; there is no sign of siskins and only occasional mistle or song thrushes supplement the many blackbirds.
An interesting absentee up to now is the firecrest. This species is usually easily found in any woodland in these parts but perhaps its tiny size is not coping well with the chilly conditions.
In the garden the sunflower seeds and fat balls which I put out are being devoured at a fast rate but almost entirely by blue and great tits, house sparrows and the common finches. A great spotted woodpecker comes reasonably regularly, though, and a robin, dunnock and several moorhen are usually foraging on the what falls from the feeders. I've taken to hanging some of the fatballs in the window recesses and this gives delightfully close views of the tits which soon found then.
It's a common species, I know, but the sight of a tight flock of about a thousand woodpigeon was an impressive one yesterday. They were were heading southwest at the height of a few hundred feet.

Bullfinches

For those who are not aware, the weather over the last week or so has turned rather cold but usually with blue skies and this has sometimes forced a change of mind about setting out on a bike. So today I took off in the car to the Braconne Forest and had a pleasant wander around on foot.
I've mentioned in previous posts that I am always stunned by the tropical brilliance of the male bullfinch so it warmed me up today to get good views of one together with his more subdued looking partner. A pair of hawfinches were in the same location and a marsh tit was not too far away. in fact the forest was yielding far more birds than usual; admittedly most of them were great and blue tits but nuthatches were plentiful and I came across one short toed treecreeper and three cranes still moving south overhead.
That little group brought this year's tally to a non too remarkable 40 or so species. Earlier in the week I watched a flock of about 350 golden plover settling on the plains near Lairiere but  even more interesting was a flock of 9 lesser black gulls which were following a plough. The freshly turned earth also attracted 9 herons and almost as many buzzards.