Flycatchers and whinchats

This, of course, is a spotted flycatcher and a couple of them (including this one) have been feeding in my garden this week along with the pied variety. They do not get on too well with each other nor with the common redstarts and the robin for that matter and much energy seems to be wasted while chasing each other about.
Up on the plains there have been quite a few migrating whinchats over the last few days. Some are in the sunflower fields while others occupy the hedges near the bio farm. There are also several common redstarts along with the occasional chiffchaff, blackcap, whitethroat, tree pipit and stonechat in the bio farm area. I can’t remember if I mentioned the wheatear which was on the plains last week but I have seen no others since.
As I passed through Galvert today a rock sparrow was calling, two hoopoe were flying around and a lone lapwing was feeding in a field.
I do remember saying that the stone curlews seem to have stopped calling .....nevertheless, I have in fact heard them this week.

Pied Flycatchers

I seem to be forever apologising for the long intervals between some of my posts and my latest excuse is that I have had no landline or internet since July the 6th... well not until yesterday when France Telecom finally got round to repairing my line.
Meanwhile, the sun has blazed down, my lawn has whitened and the poor birds have become rather desperate for water so I have kept my bird baths full.
The annual return passage of pied flycatchers through my garden began much earlier than usual this year and I have had up four at a time flitting around over the last week or so. They have been doing the usual things: calling incessantly, flicking their wings when perched and then momentarily dropping to the lawn to catch an insect before returning to a low branch.
Another early appearance was that of a wheatear on the plains this week. Like the pied flycatchers, this species does not usually show up until late August/early September.
Other birds of note have been the rock sparrows around Galvert which have numbered as many as eight and groups of up to twenty four black kites scouring the recently harvested grain fields.
Speaking of raptors, I was alerted to the cries of peregrines while walking through Angouleme a few weeks back and for a few moments watched an adult and a young bird flying around the spire of Saint Martial’ church where I assume they are nesting.
The stone curlews seem to have departed early but red backed shrikes and orioles have still been around during the last week.

June Round-up

Just in case anyone has missed me I apologise for the long gap since my last post.

Overnight we had a much needed thunder storm and a few centimetres of welcome rain after what has been a very hot period. During this time the farmers rushed to take in some of the grain, hay and rape crops which as always made me wonder how the ground-nesting birds cope. I suspect that just one pair of stone curlew now nest on the nearby plains but as I saw three birds together last week perhaps they had some breeding success. I have seen up to four hen harriers at one time so they also seem to be hanging on. To date, quail observations have been limited to just three individuals in the same area.

The little hamlet of Galvert which is just down the road has provided some interesting birding as I have managed to locate rock sparrow there more often than not and have also come across blue-headed wagtails in the nearby fields so I assume both species are breeding.

My bird sorties have been mainly restricted to cycle rides within 25 kilometres of the house and each one usually yields about 40 species although the constituents of that vary a little. Among the more unusual birds are zitting cisticola near La Rochette, spotted flycatcher at La Tâche, lesser spotted woodpecker, marsh tit and a very unseasonal crane which was walking around in the sunflower field opposite my house.

I have seen several red backed shrikes but they seem to be far less common than in recent years. Hoopoes which were abundant throughout May have now become reclusive but orioles are still calling everywhere.

Purple Heron et al

April is coming to a close so here’s a round-up of how it’s gone this year.
After a few days of warm weather which dried up the remnants of the winter’s flooding, the end of the month has turned wet and cool and household fires are lit again.
A surprise sighting on the Son-Sonnette this week was an adult purple heron. It flew up from a poplar plantation near Ventouse and perched at the top of one tree and then another, giving very good views of it long thin neck and long slim bill. A cetti’s warbler called from nearby as did several orioles which seem to have arrived in numbers in the last week or so. Near the Bandiat yesterday I came across my first hobbies of the year, three of them in fact. They were flying quite high but did not seem to be chasing the swallows and martins which were feeding close by. A single sand martin was among the many house variety and at least 15 swifts were also present. Perched in a tree was my first turtle dove of 2018. There was nothing on the river itself, however, except for a little egret. I notice that a new gouffre has opened up a little further upstream of the one down which the river used to disappear underground.
There are a few regular migrants that I’ve not yet come across this year, most noticeably whinchat and spotted flycatcher, but I was pleased to see a male wheatear on the plains a few days back and also a pair of quail which were flying low over the wheat field.

Black Storks and Greenshank

The fields are drying up rapidly and I expect there will be no water left after this week’s expected sunny weather. So it was perhaps the last few wetland migrants of the Spring that were visible this week. The black storks which I failed to see on my last visit to the Tardoire happily turned up the next day along with a few white storks together with a single greenshank  while on the Bandiat there have been several little grebes on view all week. Overall, it has been rather disappointing for waders this spring though a few other species such as ruff and ringed plover have been reported from elsewhere.
Gulls have not been plentiful either but a flock of ten black-headed were near the Bandiat a couple of days back and a Mediterranean gull turned up on the Tardoire.
Away from wetland birds, whitethroats and nightingales are now plentiful.

Shelduck and Rock Sparrows

The rain stopped more or less around 11am so I ventured out on my bike to the Tardoire. A pair of shelduck were there to greet me although they soon flew off further down the valley. The species is classed as a rarity in Charente and is essentially a passage migrant. Two stilts were also present, probably the same couple that I saw two days back.
I weakened and took the car to scan the Bandiat where the red crested pochards were still present but there was precious little else on the water other than a crested grebe. More than one nightingale was singing as were several blackcaps which seeem to have arrived in force. My first whitethroat of the year was also present in his fresh breeding finery.
The trip home took me over the plains where a pair of stone curlew landed in a field and disturbed the 28 rock sparrows which I had just counted. A female hen harrier flew by slowly, my second of the species today as I saw a male earlier.
Two black storks and two white were reported from the Tardoire after I had left the scene. You can’t win them all.

Red Crested Pochards and Stilts

The Spring floods are turning up some interesting migrants. An unexpected discovery this morning was a pair of red-crested pochard lurking at the edge of the flooded Bandiat near Vielles Vaures. This is the first time I have seen this species in France, never mind Charente. Also present there was a pair of migrating little grebes, a coot and two moorhen which were probably also on the move.

A few minutes earlier I had a look at the Tardoire and watched two black-winged stilts feeding close to a great white egret. The latter are now a relatively common sight in our department but I have not seen stilts here since the last flooded Spring a few years back. It’s a fascinating conjecture as to where these unusual birds are travelling to and from.

There was not much else at either site except for lots of swallows, a few house martins, four green sandpipers and four white storks which had been flushed by a gyrocopter. I note that another observer reported yellow wagtails at The Tardoire but I didn’t see any.

Yesterday evening as I returned from a walk, I heard my first stone curlew (thick knee) of the year calling from the field opposite my house.

Back from Texas

A three week break in Texas took me away to warmer climes and (mainly) different birds but now I’m swopping cardinals and mockingbirds for black redstarts and nightingales.
I’m still getting over the jet-lag but I managed a trip to the Tardoire valley yesterday. It’s still partly flooded yet the only passage birds were a single great white egret, a lonely lapwing, lots of swallows and a sand martin. A quick look at the Bandiat revealed more swallows, the call of a little grebe and a singing nightingale.
Back at chez nous a cuckoo was calling and I was happy to see that the regular black redstart had moved back in while I was away.
It’s curious that although Houston is much further south than Charente (on the latitude of, say, north Morocco) Spring migration seems more advanced here. Far more song birds are singing for instance.

Great White Egret

There have been some pleasant warm spells over the last few days but showers have helped the flooded fields to retain an attraction for a few early Spring migrants.
There is still not a great deal to report from my part of Charente but a great while egret and around a hundred black headed gulls were present in the Tardoire valley this week.
Because of the very wet winter and early Spring this is probably the best March for Charente birding for several years but unfortunately I am going to miss the next three weeks as I’m visiting my family in Texas.
Anybody who is reading this blog might wish to make their own comments about what is happening.

Flooded Fields

Showers seem to be the order of virtually everyday for the next week or more and this offers hope of sightings of waders and wildfowl in the fields which are still partly under water. The Tardoire revealed only 21 black headed gulls and about 100 lapwings today but there are reports from further west of redshanks, ringed plover and even little gull (which remarkably is not classed as a rarity in Charente).
Green woodpeckers seem to be calling everywhere and early evenings now feature the songs of several competing blackbirds.

Gulls

There’s not a great deal to report at present but the last couple of days of warm sunshine have been welcome and have raised expectations. We all know that spring migration doesn’t really get underway until later in March but there is always the chance that something might turn up. A brief visit to the Tardoire today revealed that most of the lapwings have moved on and there is not a single goldenplover remaining. The most interesting sight was of three black headed gulls floating in the middle of a flooded field, not a great deal to get excited about but indicating that some birds are moving.
I have visited the Bandiat river at Vielles Vaure but sadly the site has been degraded from a birding point of view because of scrub clearance. More of the flooded area has been revealed but migrating water birds have less concealment. Not surprisingly, nothing was there other than four mallards.
There have been reports of shoveler and garganey from other Charente sites and the blackbird’s song is brightening up the early evenings so we’ll see what the next few days bring (other than showers that is).

Golden Plovers

Although the flooded valleys are drying up they are still providing feeding sites for large numbers of lapwing and golden plover. The latter seem to be concentrated on the Tardoire between Fougère and Coulgens where several hundred have been feeding over the last week.
I missed out on the white storks which Cagouille reported and on the shelduck which were mentioned on the Charente Nature site but I did see a single snipe among the plovers.
Water and meadow pipits are also moving through at present along with lots of cranes. There were over 200 of the latter feeding next to the Tardoire near Fougère on Tuesday.
A pair of little owls were taking the opportunity to sunbathe at the top of the tower of Saint Colombe’s logis as I drove by this week. Several brambling were with a very large flock of chaffinches near La Rochette.
Siskins and nuthatches are still missing from my bird feeders this winter but a dunnock and a collared dove have recently joined the party. I can’t remember ever having a coal tit, it’s strange how localised   many species are.

Feb 2018 ...and a Very Wet Winter

My last post was almost three months ago!
I could put this down to the ‘where does the time go?’ age-thing or to my familiar wrestle with Google when I have been locked out of my blog..... again, probably an age-thing... or perhaps because I’ve been very busy or been away, and I can’t clearly remember if either of those are true.

But, for better or worse, I’m back on line and I’ll try to keep up.

There is an icy blast blowing today and snow is forecast for tomorrow but at least that will make a change from the seemingly endless rain of this winter; I can’t remember a duller or wetter one. All the rivers have been over their banks and into the fields but the floods are receding at the moment.
But it’s been pretty mild and this has had an effect on our winter birds. I’ve seen a very few fieldfares or redwings and just a handful of bramblings since my last post, and not a single siskin although some have been reported in the department.
My bird feeders have attracted the usual hordes of blue and great tits, house sparrows, greenfinches, goldfinches and chaffinches but only the occasional hawfinch or brambling so times can not have been too hard. A great spotted woodpecker is another regular visitor and a sparrowhawk’s ambush causes panic from time to time. A chiffchaff has been around the garden all winter but I have seen no sign of any blackcaps.
It’s always interesting to watch the different feeding strategies of the birds which come for food. The tits hang on to the fat balls as do the sparrows but the finches, robins and dunnocks often settle underneath and feed off the bits that fall down. The moorhens which come up from the pond adopt the latter technique, of course, and all these ground feeders seem to largely accept each other’s company. Not so with the sunflower seed feeders! Here there is constant warfare and the most aggressive bird seems to be the sharp billed goldfinch who likes it’s all to himself. Blue tits can be surprisingly assertive, however, and often hold their own against their bigger rivals. The tits take a seed away to break into it as do the woodpeckers but the finches break the seed open in situ, a much more effective tactic.
Away from the garden I have little of note to report other than some small flocks of cattle egret and three red kites way back in November but perhaps the most delightful thing has been the regular singing of mistle thrushes since mid January and even the occasional burst of blackbird song when a warm sun has made an occasional appearance.

PS    A very belated reply to a comment on my November post about migrating cranes; no, I have not seen any sign of the nearby wind turbines causing a problem for migrating birds. I can see the potential problem especially at night and when the blades are rotating rapidly but up to now the birds seem to be avoiding them perhaps because they usually fly at much higher altitudes.