An étourneau-shing sight...

Starling [Sturnus vulgaris] Étourneau sansonnet

Yesterday morning we had a flight of at least four thousand to five thousand Starlings [Sturnus vulgaris] Étourneau sansonnet over the house...
now we understand why they are a nuisible in France...
it was one of those "Wow!!" moments.

I was looking out of the kitchen window when they started coming past...
and, as they kept coming, I became a little hypnotised by the movement of the birds.
They were flying straight down the Aigronne Valley...
East to West!

What it looked like... but this was from later and not so close!

When I'd pulled myself together...
after a couple of minutes, I might add...
I called upstairs to Pauline...
 mainly because she hadn't "informed" me of the flypast...
so I knew she hadn't, at that point, spotted them.

They continued flying past for about another minute...
and as the tail-end left my view point I dashed to the "front" door...
grabbing a camera off the table en-route...

They were this close to the house... but travelling East to West!!

It was only then that I realised that they had over-flown the house...
and not just in front of the kitchen window...
they were still passing on the other side of the longére!!
But only for a few seconds...

So...
I didn't get any pictures at that point...
but...
looking over toward Grandmont and La Jarrie a couple of hours later...
Pauline spotted another well known starling "sight"...
a "murmuration"....
this can take place at a roost in the evening...
or if there is a raptor about...
quite often below the flock...
waiting to pick one off as they settle into a tree...
or onto the ground.
As we saw our "murmuration" around mid-morning...
'twas probably the latter.

The starlings stretch from the top of the picture to the bottom...
view large by clicking on these pictures for the full effect.

There were probably around a thousand in this flock...
really tiny... when compared with the two U-Tube videos below.

Here they are spiralling up and down...

While Pauline has seen this type of display at a roost of many thousands near York...
this is the first time I have seen it "live"...
"as seen on TV" wildlife action being my only viewings up to yesterday!!

They are off the top of this picture and linked by some birds to the two "blobs" at the bottom...

...these two blobs!!

The flock Pauline spotted, broke up and about half flew towards us and directly overhead...
and as the camera was in hand, I could at least show you what the sky looked like in the morning...
albeit from the wrong direction...
they are the two flight shots at the start!.

So... here's a couple of U-Bend videos of these wonderful displays...
starting with one filmed at the RSPB's Otmoor Reserve, just outside Oxford...
which has a very good commentary...

I recommend watching this one full screen...

This second one is at Gretna Green...
and there is a single falcon around, near the roost...
another favourite place for a raptor to lie in wait!!

And "Tweet of the Day" on Radio Four this morning was.....

The Starling

 presented by David Attenborough!!

Chiffchaff cabaret

For the last fortnight we have been entertained by a quartet of athletic chiffchaffs (phylloscopus collybita, pouillot véloce). The combination of soggy ground and (relatively) warm days has resulted in swarms of flies and other small insects rising from the grassland. Numbers of these find their way onto the wall of our kitchen, lounge and bedrooms, which faces northwest. The chiffchaffs spend the day target-spotting from perches in the cherry tree and the smaller trees that line the bank of the bief.

I've got my eye on you

They snatch insects out of the air, or rootle in the window boxes, or hop along the window sills, or hover at the top of the window, or even smash-and-grab flies from the glass with a loud thump. They show no fear of us. Several times one or other of us has come face to face with a small rotund olive-and-green bird, about a foot away, separated only by the double glazing. They are fast movers, but Tim managed to get some nice pictures.

who's got short primary projections then

Chiffchaffs are resident in this part of France, which probably means that "our" summer singing birds are now in Spain or North Africa, and "our" winter gang of athletes spent the summer in the forests of Scandinavia. They may be a group of siblings from this year's brood. They are certainly extremely fit and successful hunters.

The short tips to the primary wing feathers and dark legs distinguish a chiffchaff from its close relative, the willow warbler (phylloscopus trochilus, pouillot fitis), but the real distinction is its song. The chiffchaff goes "chiff-chaff chiff-chiff-chaff" and the willow warbler gives a monotonous descending "twee twee tweedle". The willow warbler is strictly a summer visitor to western Europe, and I've never heard one in the Aigronne valley. Ornithologist Tim Dixon tells of a bird ringing exercise near York in which a small olive-and-green warbler was definitely identified in the hand as a willow warbler. When released, it flew away singing "chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff"...

Reasons to linger longer in bed...

A strong wind blowing from the West on a miserable, damp, grey morning...
the bedroom is nice and warm...
the bed even cosier...
we have a cup each of Taylor's on the bedside tables...
and each a pair of binoculars...

And we are watching the birds...
Our view is a little restricted...
but we can see the ridge opposite.

From left... Long wave radio for the cricket [unplugged], bird book, binos, cat brushes and McDougalls Flour Men

First some pigeons having a "fly around"....
back and forth...
always a straggler...

The odd pair of crows...
making their way westward against the wind...
then a flock of small birds rapidly westward across our view!

Too fast to identify properly, but all the "jizz"...
the way they are flying, the way they behave....
shouts...
starlings...
busy aiming toward feeding grounds....
that they probably hadn't finished working yesterday...
before heading home to roost...

Then something larger glides slowly into vision...
just a buzzard!
Three seem to be around again...
nice to see them back after about a month's absence.

Buze Variable

It is hunting the ridge opposite...
using the wind to hold it steady whilst it watches the ground...
hunting...
hunting...
the primary feathers are completely spread...
like fingers at the end of the wing...
they twitch and flicker...
the wings jiggle...
the tail twists one way...
then the other...
controlling its position minutely...
it must be rising and falling as it makes its way against the wind...
but it is imperceptible...
it looks like it is travelling on rails...
all the time the head is moving left and right..
scanning the ground...

Common Buzzard

It sees something and begins to hover...
like a kestrel...
not as smoothly...
but enough to hold station...
eyes fixed on the ground below...
the wings close into the body as it stoops...
but then, almost as quickly they flick back out...
and the buzzard rises on the wind...
allowing itself to be carried up...
and back to where it began the stoop...
it had lost sight of the prey.

Three times we watched it pass the windows westward...
working the ridge...

The ridge up by La Jarrie

A sudden burst of activity nearer to us...
a cloud of LBJs lifts into the sky from our riverbank...
then two crows, chasing a raptor, come flying past...
making the deep cronking call we've noticed...
when watching them harry predators...
From what little we saw of the raptor...
it was probably the female sparrowhawk...
she's a regular along the riverbank and past the house.


Reasons enough I think to stay a little longer in bed...
on a Sunday!!

_____________________________________oOo_____________________________________

[LBJs... Little Brown Jobs... usually used to group the mixed flocks of winter buntings, finches and tits... often seen in silhouette against a grey sky... but often 'hiding' interesting species.]

Look out, there's a monster coming

Last night, at precisely 18:30, a ravening monster could be seen ascending the narrow road beyond the Aigronne opposite our kitchen windows. It was full dark on one of the longest nights of the year, and the creature was lighting its way by its own blaze. It let out a terrible roaring. With shaking hands I held up the camera.

Aiee! A Balrog! A Balrog is come!

The maize harvester had come at last, to finish the crop ahead of the first of a series of storms that threaten an unpleasant Christmas for us. Tim saw three half-tracked harvesters on the local roads in "convoi agricole" yesterday, one with clearly new tracks. This swarm of toothy monsters reinforces our feeling that it's the lack of machinery suitable for soft ground that is delaying the maize harvest.

Half-track maize harvester, behind the trees that border the Aigronne, running ahead of the storm

The loss of water meadow to highly profitable maize monoculture is heartbreaking to lovers of wildlife. Formerly, the waterside fields were used as grazing and to provide hay for livestock. The maize provides cover and gleanings for game birds such as red-legged partridge but little else. The habitat used to support wetland birds such as snipe and flowers like the snakeshead fritillary, but they are increasingly hard to find.

The heavy machinery is compacting the soil, making it less able to absorb heavy rain and increasing the flood risk all along the valley. Pools of standing water saturate the crop after every rainfall, causing great patches to rot and die. In the large meadow next to the bridge, the attempted maize crop was such a spectacular failure that the owner, a dairy farmer, re-seeded with rye grass and has gone back to hay and silage. Unfortunately the wild flowers are gone.

Ravening monster by daylight - note the caterpillar track around the front wheel

Yet there are still wet water meadows with a more positive future. There is what is being done in Yorkshire at Wheldrake Ings, more details see here and here. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust bought Wheldrake Ings in 1973. It forms part of the Lower Derwent Valley national nature reserve, which is a RAMSAR site of international importance for wetland birds. The method of land use, once the norm, has all but died out in the British Isles.

The hay meadows of Wheldrake Ings are managed as they have been for hundreds of years. The meadows are cut in July and stock turned out to graze the aftermath until October. Nature then takes over, and the winter floods enrich the meadows with sediment washed down from the moors.

In keeping with tradition, the graziers used by the Trust are local farmers, who live close to the meadows.. 

Wheldrake Ings Floodplain Meadows - Credit Kirsty Brown

These meadows have up to 25 plant species per square metre - better than a field of maize any day!

Again, along the banks of the Indre between Loches and Beaulieu lès-Loches, the water meadows of les Prairies du Roy are now an attractive and educational piece of ecotourism, and a valuable flood defence, albeit at a price of over 1 million euros. Here, the hay/grazing/flood annual cycle had given way to poplar plantations, overgrown scrub and fly-tipping, rather than maize, but the effect was the same - biodiversity was shrinking all the time while species loss accelerated. Now those species at least have a chance to return.

Les Prairies du Roy - the hay meadows return

Mouse's'miles...

A new unit of measure...
no, not really...
just one very well travelled mouse...
posing for the camera.

I'm not sure what that right front paw is trying to convey... but I can guess!!

The saga started when I noticed something yellow in the back footwell of our Merc estate!
Closer inspection showed it to be little bits of duster...
Looking in the pocket on the back of the driver's seat told me where it had come from...
a traditional yellow duster...
which now had a collection of holes in it.. and some very, very small droppings attached...
I shook the duster out and put it back...
checking that there wasn't anyone at home elsewhere in the pocket.
I checked the other pocket on the front passenger seat...
no sign that anyone had ever been there..........

I checked under one section of the rear passenger seat...
aha!!
Some small b'stard had chewed a hole in the LIDL insulated bag...
right on the fold necessary to keep it under the seat.
Not a great loss... we haven't used it since we've been in France.
But it had also eaten a chestnut from Valmer... a Horse Chestnut... about four years old...
collected before we moved and forgotten about until they were iron hard...
I put the seat back down...

All that's left... bits of husk, the base and bits of LIDL cool bag!!

Going round the other side of the car, I lifted the other section of the rear seat...
it had been here too...
it had chewed an old single duvet cover, kept under the seat for covering goods in the back.
I lifted the duvet cover and spotted the nest....

Well made... but some of those lime leaves are green...
how long has it been there...
how far has it travelled!??

the nest moved...
I poked it with a finger...
and something mouse-like shot out...
and under the seat that I'd put down...
Hmmm! 

I left the door wide open and went back round the driver's side...
and opened the rear door...
and lifted the seat.

"EeeeK! PaniC!! It's a human... where do I go...?"

I aimed to grab its tail....
but it decided to make good its escape and shot out of the opposite door.
GOOD!!
It is not wanted in this vehicle!

I replaced the seat and went to check the nest...
most of which consisted of lime leaves...
I have no idea when the mouse had moved in, but there must be an easy way in and out...
most of the lime leaves looked fairly whole.
I investigated the nest... the hole in the middle looked about right for a single mouse...
and there wasn't a family left behind!

A cosy home... I bundled it back together!!

There was another, untouched chestnut sitting behind the duvet cover...
I placed that near the entrance to the nest...
and put the seat back down...
then..
I moved the car!

I knew that wouldn't keep it out...
when doing a study on Bank Voles...

I had a chubby little male who used to go back into the trap almost as soon as I left the area...
on the final occasion I heard the trap's door close before I left...
I had to move the trapping site... and took all my traps to an area just over a mile away.
It took him seven and a half days to find them again... and he was 6 grams lighter!

In this case, when I checked under the seat...
I saw the nest move... good, it is back... it can get out in Grand Pressigny!
I arrived in Grand Pressigny... no sign of the little critter... damn!

In the afternoon we went to Chatellerault...
still no sign...
but some of the "new" chestnut had been nibbled!
The next day I didn't go anywhere...
but checked the nest on the Wednesday...
before we left for the Touraine Bloggers Christmas Lunch party...
it moved as I lifted the seat...
right! It can get out in Montrichard!!!

After the meal...
no, it wasn't there...
li'l'ugger!!

Right... 
this means war...
time to set the traps.

I baited them with "Snacky-Cracky" from SuperU...
irresistible...
and not just to rodents...
one trap in the footwell and one under the smaller seat...
and...
this morning...
SUCCESS!!
Got 'im!!!!
Yes... it was a HE...
a male Wood Mouse, Field Mouse [Apodemus sylvaticus] Souris de terre, Souris des bois.

Trying to let him go!!
You can just make him out on the left...
Every time I opened the front, he pushed on the bar and closed the door!
No... he hadn't finished the "Snacky-Cracky", thank you....
in the end I tipped him out!!

He "got out" by the "noyer privée" on the way into Grand Pressigny!

I left him by a good food supply...
someone else's... but it won't harm...
if they are still on the ground now,
they are under all the leaves!!

We have no idea how long he'd been in residence...
nor, how many miles he'd travelled...
but, in and out of Chatellerault...
and there and back to Montrichard...
he's got to have travelled many more miles than 99% of Field Mice...
but, it does go to show....
in these days of Chunnel and Ferry travel....
and "borderless" countries...
just how easy it must be for small mammals...
or insects... to cross continents!!

On returning home...
I reset the trap!!
I wonder..............................................?

Any Umbel will do!!

Susan from Days on the Claise blogged about what wildlife to look for in September and mentioned that the Swallowtail [Papilio machaon] caterpillar can be found feeding on Fennel, French Hog's-fennel or Wild Parsnip -- "it's even worth checking your garden carrots" she wrote...

Apparently any of the Umbelliferae will do....
The one below was on our Celeriac...

for a Swallowtail, though, I don't mind the loss of a leaf or two on these rather healthy plants!

NB: In the UK they are confined to the Norfolk Broads where they only feed on Milk Parsley...
Perhaps they need a bit of instruction?