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.