Lapwing update...

They did come back around coffee time today....
and I got some pictures that I shall share here [with descriptions after the photo.]
Click on all the photos to view them full size... they will open into a separate window.

There were about eight groups of Lapwings visible as one looked down the valley....
and ten or so groups of Golden Plover...
but they didn't join up as I watched...
which makes me think that last night's huge flock was a roosting gathering...
so following my update for today in the previous post....
they must have been away when there was barely enough light to see by.

This was the nearest grouping to me.... just over the lake.
There were more flights in the distance.
It is difficult to judge the size of the flocks when they are wheeling around so much....
but they can be counted from photographs...
but it is tedious and numbingly boring... but we may well have underestimated yesterdays flock...
in the middle view, the bottom group has a 'tongue' that projects towards the tree... it is about one sixth of the total... I counted it and there were at least 120 birds [before the group double in depth] which makes that group around 700 birds... and then there are the other two bunches above.
The flock we saw yesterday was bigger and denser... so may well have included the groups further down the valley.

The loose "W",  with some stragglers behind, in this picture are the Golden Plover.... it is one of the patterns to look for. The other pattern is a crescent shaped flock.
The birds at the bottom right of the picture are part of the main Lapwing flock.

Here is another flight of Golden Plover above some of the Lapwings... if you click on it to see it full size you will be able to see the difference in shape between the species. The "W" at the top is very clear in this image.

A lot of birdwatching is based on "jizz"... the way the bird flies; its size; the other birds that it is with; impression of colour; etc., etc.

Here's another picture taken one minute after the last of the above shots [10:37 to 10:41 for the above shots]

But these aren't either of above species... they are thrushes....
probably Fieldfares [the large ones]... and Redwings [the smaller]....
the wingshape and body outline tell me that... and knowledge of those species behaviour at this time of the year tell me the rest. No need to see colour sometimes.
Both species migrate into the region for the winter and are often in association with each other.
They are often seen around the local orchards.... feeding on the apples that were too small to pick and have been left on the tree.

More flocking Lapwings...

Our work this afternoon was interupted for a while as we watched a huge flock of Lapwings [Vanellus vanellus] Vanneau huppé and Golden Plovers [Pluvialis apricaria] Pluvier doré flying around, up and down this bit of the valley.

There are no pictures...
too busy watching....
and, when they settled, they were too distant for all but the 'scope...
and with the poor light...
impossible.

But I can have a go at describing what we saw...

Some large flocks of Lapwings gradually melded into one huge 'committee'...
silently swooping and wheeling around us.
Occasionally, like many committees...
they would split into smaller groups that seemed to want to go in different directions.

They would pick up other small bands that were coming in from either side of the valley.

They swooped and turned....
glided...
flapped around...
dived through the group next to them...
and formed back up again.

The flock seemed to grow and grow....

At that point...
amongst the cloud of swirling birds appeared a small flock of slightly smaller, narrow-winged waders...
these joined in with the swooping, diving, turning Lapwings.
All were semi-sillhoutted against a grey sky but we were pretty sure they'd be Golden Plover.

Then a few of the joint flock started to get lower and lower...
as if about to land...
and then driven by the committee urge they lifted again...
swirling to confuse raptors...
and us!

Time after time they repeated this... the sight of more than five hundred swirling waders is something to be marvelled at.

Then suddenly, they began to settle in the field next door....
spiralling down...
the spiral cloud getting denser as they descended....
all down, they all rose again and spiraled down...
and again and again!
Eventually they calmed down...
they'd decided to feed...
I went and got the big 'scope.

Focused the 'scope onto the flock and confirmed that the other waders were indeed Golden Plover, their golden plumage clear and , for the conditions, bright...
then, as one, they all rose...
but we'd already seen that they weren't feeding.
They'd been just standing there...
facing into the wind...
ready for take-off.

Again, they didn't go far....
and soon settled again.
This happened a couple more times before they settled properly...
and then more waders, both Lapwing and Golden Plover, appeared...
and also spiralled down to join them.

Although it was early, they were probably settling down to roost.

All in all, there must have been over 500 Lapwing and about half that number of Golden Plover settled in the field and with any luck, they'll still be here tomorrow morning having an early feed!

The last time we saw them in this number was north of Paris in October 2005... we wrote about them here.

24-11-2012 Update.... they'd gone!

Blue mood Mushrooms

On the Fungal Foray in the Forest of Loches, we found these small blue fungi.

On the forest floor...

On the table at the end....

From a slightly different angle.

They are Green Wood Cups [Chlorosplenium aeruginascens (Syn.Chlorociboria aeruginascens)], which grow on dead hardwood and the fruiting bodies are rarely seen. Although inedible they do have value... they point to wood that will have a secondary use....
They stain the wood that the mycelium* are growing in a distinct greeny-blue which has been used in woodwork as a naturally dyed material.

A small chunk of the main piece, sawn in half to show the colour all through the wood.

It is not as uncommon as the fruiting bodies... apart from the wood shown here, we've found it on some of the old willow that we've cut and stacked in the meadow.
 

Here the edge of the advancing mycelium can be seen... almost fluorescent!

Here the mycelium are attacking another wood decaying fungi, as well as the wood!

Perhaps one of the most famous uses of the stained wood was in Tunbridge Ware...
Originally 19th Century Tunbridge Ware consisted of transfer printed pictures on treen# [small wooden objects such as the matchbox holder and the measuring tape below] but developed into the art of wood mosaics.
These are a couple of examples gleaned from an auction site on the internet.....

This is a Tunbridgeware matchbox holder... the 'blue' can clearly be seen.

This example is much more complex, but again the blue/green wood has been used.

The mosaic was built up from square rods of coloured wood, glued into a block and then cut into thin veneers.... hence the fact that the mosaics on the tape measure match so well. Mosaic Tunbridgeware or Tunbridge Ware is very sought after... the matchbox holder alone is worth around £400!

The dark wood in the mosaic could be dark oak... another fungal colouration in the timber... this time caused by Poor-man's Beefsteak, Oak Liver Fungus or Beefsteak Fungus [Fistulina hepatica] Langue de Boeuf.

This is not the normal appearance... it was growing upwards from a stump apparently....

This 'slab of meat' appearance is more common... appetising, non? [from the Preuilly foray.]

You will have noticed that it has many English common names... England used to have great Oak woods. The mycelium darken the heartwood of living oaks... but in this case the fungus doesn't destroy the tree like Honey Fungus does.

Beefsteak Fungus is edible... when raw... it has nice texture.. but little flavour... in fact, to my palate, it just tasted woody and I haven't eaten it since!
The first one I found I had cooked... NOT A GOOD IDEA... I threw it in the bin... school meal liver didn't have a patch on the rubber sole that cooked Beefsteak Fungus becomes. I think it would make very good, long lasting hinges...

On the first Fungal Foray at Preuilly, one of the people, around the table at the end,was going on at some length of how good it was in what we would call a winter salad... with chopped beans, rocket, Chinese cabbage and carrot... I haven't tried this, but I can see that a strongly flavoured dressing on the salad would be carried by the raw mushroom... which would most likely be chewable raw. It is known, after all, as Poor-man's beefsteak.

Other livingwood fungi like Honey Fungus [Armillaria mellea] Armillaire couleur de miel, give rise to patterning in the wood... much liked by turners of treen as there are dark lines in a pale wood object like this piece of chestnut that reminds me of a little 'oddities' box that I bought Pauline... and which is in a box somewhere... possibly in the bedroom.

Speltered wood... There are two fungi at work here... one leaving a pinky-brown colour...  the other a grey-brown.

Such work is known as "Speltered" in the UK [or in the US "Spalted"] and is usually made from timber of a hardwood tree where the wood is normally light in colour... beech and birch are perhaps the most common... and exhibits dark stained lines and splotches caused by the fungal attack. . We are coming up to the Christmas Fayre season... keep an eye out for speltered-ware bowls, cups and plates.

There is a very interesting article on how to create your own speltered [spalted] wood for turning here... written for the US Forestry department. And there I was thinking that it was just a good spot on the part of the wood turners... originally, it probably was... but when something becomes popular... then someone does some research & development... there was even an article on how to promote and sell your decorative wood products...


Glossary:
*mycelium = the mass of thread-like material that you find if you turn over leaves where Fungi are growing. Put very simply, what we call fungi are only the fruiting bodies of a vast network of threads, feeding on and breaking down dead material.

#Treen = small wooden objects, often turned, always artisanally made... found in antique shops or on bric-a-brac stalls.

Autumnal Gold

A picture post, thanks to Nature's way of getting rid of waste...

Golden Leaves
A Norway Maple at its very best.

All those lovely leaf colours we get in Autumn are the trees pumping waste products into the leaves before letting them fall... we then gather them up if they are in the garden and try and recreate what happens naturally in the woods... the manufacture of leaf mould... one of the best soil additives out.
It is all part of the Carbon Cycle...

A lone Field Maple...
glowing at the edge of the wood.

Autumn colour
Two yellow Field Maples and a very red Sumac give colour to this view.
[The evergreens provide contrast.]

Three Trees Four
Four [yes, four,] Norway Maples... but one has no leaves.

On Golden Pond
Just a bit of Photoshop fun...

So thank you Carbon Cycle for your Autumn glory!

Wet, wetter, wettest!

The first weekend of this month saw the end of a very wet week... in fact the wettest since we've been here.
Since Thursday, November the First, the rain didn't seem to stop falling for more than a couple of minutes.
And, if you needed to go outside at that point, there was still some rain "in the air".
I made this comment on another blog...
"We are currently flooded at this end of the Aigronne... the bief is up two foot from the norm... our neighbours fields are awash, one containing winter wheat, and we have a flooded meadow.
The meter is reading almost an inch of rain for the last twenty-four hours and it is still bucketing down. The plastic gauge is over half full... can't read the divisions... I am looking at it with the telescope from indoors... but that's around three inches since last Saturday!"

The two pictures on this entry are taken from the bedroom window... I wasn't venturing out at that point.

The main meadow... awash from end to end.
The bright reflections are from the water... under our big willows...
in the recently ploughed field on the far bank...
and from the reflection beyond the big willows to the new willows on the right...
the rather 'flat' appearance of the grass is caused by the flowing water.
There is even some on the plateau where the forge stood...
look at the reflection of the sky...
just beyond the wood pile in the foreground....
the highest ground on that bank!!

I haven't yet connected up the Weather Station to the computer... but we have a plastic tube rain gauge that I've been emptying on Sundays. From the morning of Sunday the 28th October to last Sunday morning a total of 96mm had fallen... as I emptied it around mid-afternoon, that doesn't include the millimetre that the rain gauge was showing at midnight... that fell whilst I was over in the longère beginning this post.

Grand Café Créme anyone?
This is the view the other side of the new willows in the previous photograph.
Silty water doing our meadow some good... but...
Silty water covering the recently recovered weed in the bief!
As I complete this blog entry for posting....
there is still standing water in the ditch between the two meadow areas

As Gaynor blogged there were floods everywhere... especially effected were the newly planted fields of Winter Wheat.
But I commented elsewhere...
"I have no sympathy though for the farmers who cultivate the floodplain, rather than leaving it for grazing or hay. The ploughing has created a rise at the field edge and a hollow in the middle... result, now that the river has gone down a little is that, between the bridge and the poplar plantation there is now a visible river edge on the lefthand side that matches the righthand edge by the road.... leaving in the middle a lake that won't drain for weeks. There are newly planted crops here that will not now come up... and the field will not be dry enough to re-work until the late Spring... what a b#**~y waste! Until two years ago, this was a regularly mowed hay meadow!"

We have a goodly number of 'eleveurs' of beef cattle around here, as well as La Borde and Grandmont just up the hill from us who are both milk producers. The new wash of silt over the fields that are grazing land will ensure a good hay crop... or, in the case of M. Deschartes, a small holder with a small herd of milkers, living just above the hill from Gatault [also a grazier/cattle dealer] good grazing. His cattle are on the in-by land around the farm... or under cover... at the moment, so the good cuts of hay he got from the meadow at the bottom of the hill, before he let the cattle have free rein, will help over winter with the quality of his milk. Both he, and the cattle dealer at Gatault, use the flood plains for what they should be used for... grazing!!

Others cultivate right up to the river edge... just to get that extra bit of cash... and then moan that all the work currently going on on the river is causing the flooding... when they are using land that should never be cultivated. How on earth is Yohann, the river technician, going to get the water quality he is after with some of the local agriculturalists causing problems like this.... with the fields cultivated right up to the water courses, the fertilisers, manure and worst, the slurry will continue to run off and pollute the river.

What hope is there for the river life?
And the wildlife that depends on it...
how can the Kingfisher hope to feed...
lucky dip?

.... more on the arrival of Winter.

...as promised more observations on the arrival of Winter.

Flocking tits...
flocking jays...
flocking pigeons...
flocking Goldfinches...
in fact,
flocking everything!

The birds are flocking, a winter trait among many species...
and we have large flocks of corvids... crows and jackdaws... 
milling around....
suddenly....
a tree will appear to loose all it's upper leaves...
and the 'leaves' leaving turn out to be a huge flock of Goldfinches that were blending in with the remaining foliage.

Simon of "Days on the Claise" observed last year a flock of corvids playing in the wind... and, despite the recent rain, our corvid flocks have been doing the same! Susan blogged about the same sort of  behaviour here in 2008.

The flocks of Lapwings are getting noticeably larger and the tit numbers are much larger than a week or two ago... and the warblers that were with them then seem to have moved on.

But perhaps, amongst all these flocking birds, the most spectacular have been....
the Wood Pigeons...
swirling flocks of a couple of hundred...
taking twenty or so minutes to pass the bedroom window...
when they are strung out as they move from one recently harvested maize field to another....

A very small part of a strung out movement of pigeons... open it in a separate window to view the numbers.
(I took three pictures to try and show the length... but they didn't stitch together.)

or in swirling clouds as they descend for a break in the poplars at the end of our meadow...
and then, without warning, exploding outward in all directions...
before assembling again, swirling around and settling...
a raptor had passed, probably, but I'd missed that.

Could have been the female Sparrowhawk...
or even one of...
or more probably, the local Goshawk.
We have had the occasional Peregrine...
all of which would love a tasty pigeon breast!
And it is the raptors that 'cause' the flocking...
it is a winter survival trait...
with the swirling mass it is difficult for the raptor to target an individual...
fish shoal for the same reason, but not seasonally.

Now we are watching out for the Cranes... they are on the move... a few flights have passed through Limousin... but they are massing at the Lac du Der to the north... 40,000+! So they are on their way south, too.

Winter is officially here!

Yes... Pauline just looked out of the bedroom window and announce "The Dabchick is back!" So with the first of our Winter residents in place on the bief, Winter has arrived. More later.............................