Proud parents

For the second time this year Pinknose the moorhen and her compagne have made it through a successful hatching and are now leading a little convoy of tiny bald black scribbles up and down the millstream.

On the nest.

Peep?

Peep-peep!!

With the first brood we saw four chicks. Two were slightly larger than the others, and it was most unlikely that all four would survive, due to a combination of predators such as pike, inclement weather and their own general gormlessness. The millstream flows quite fast under the bridge next door to the nest, but given a normal rate of flow even the smallest chick seems capable of paddling itself back upstream. In the end we only seemed to see two fully mature juveniles around.

Moorhens are very attentive parents, and they share all child care duties. When the chicks are away from the nest, there is always at least one parent with them, while the other forages for tasty snacks. The parent-in-charge makes a regular beep-beep which reminds me of the rather unimpressive horn on the tricycle I had at the age of five. It is quite a soothing call and seems to make the chicks follow the parent and not go wandering off. Whereas the growling noise from Pinknose on her nest when Tim went too close with the camera warned the chicks to dive under her feathers and hide from the perceived threat. She made the same noise when Baron the tom cat went to sit on the parapet. He doesn't much mind getting wet when it comes to rain, but he hasn't tried swimming - yet.

Declaration de Travaux:-  Patio and Apero area

Dad built a 'patio' to make room for the growing chicks, but that was the cue for the rains to start and we don't think they ever got the barbecue lit! As a result of the much greater growth of vegetation, we are not sure whether or not the old nest was used for the second clutch, or if it was the patio that seemed more suited. We only saw the little balls of fluff today and haven't yet managed to count them.

Dad! Can we have a barbecue, Dad? Can we? Can we?
Shurrup! I've told you... it's raining! Again!!

All these photos are from the first brood.

Proserpina in the underworld

Yesterday I was harvesting shallots in the potager when a creature surged out of the freshly-broken ground in front of me. My first thought was that I had disturbed some kind of snake, with a pointed snout and a grey, apparently scaly, back. Any small predator such as a weasel would back off immediately when confronted by this display. Then the tail emerged revealing the animal to be a chubby critter just over two inches long, rather short for a snake, although at full stretch in "attack" mode it was a good three inches! Tim came over hastily from mowing and pronounced it to be a hawkmoth caterpillar, but not one he recognised. It has a single eye spot in the middle of its tail, tiny spots of blue and red in black rings on its sides, and lacks a tail spike.

Actually it's rather cute!

Shown against Tim's finger gives a scale to the beasty!

Consultation of the "oracle" (Michael Chinery) identified it as proserpinus proserpina, a species lacking an English common name but whose French name, Sphinx de l'épilobe, translates as the willowherb hawk moth. It also feeds on evening primrose and purple loosestrife, and has been identified as a pollinator of the greater butterfly orchid, platanthera chlorantha. The INPN web site informs us that this is a regulated species on the Red List of insect species for France. The Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel only has three records for Indre-et-Loire. Since its home had already been destroyed by accident, we placed it on a molehill in the meadow by some willowherb plants in the hope that it will be able to bury itself again if it so prefers, with its food species nearby but out of reach of large bipeds with gardening forks.

Back on the ground, "scales" showing up nicely.

The scientific name, considering that the caterpillar came out from under the ground, is interesting in itself. Proserpina (Persephone in Greek myth) was the daughter of the Roman goddess Ceres (the Greek Demeter), who was the Earth Mother and "the protectrice of agriculture, and of all the fruits of the earth". Proserpina was sleeping in a flowery meadow when Hades, the god of the underworld, saw her, fell madly in love and carried her off. Ceres pined for her and winter came into the world. Proserpina pined for her mother and her flowers, and generally made life hell for Hades. Eventually husband and mother came to an agreement: Proserpina would spend six months of the year with Hades and six months with Ceres. Winter ended, spring came and the cycle of the seasons began.

Another side view... showing the tail end.

The catterpillar getting an advanced look at what it will become.

Water chickens - their struggle

Our resident pair of moorhens [gallinula chloropus] gallinules poules d'eau , Pinknose and her mate, have been industriously nest-building for their second year. Last year they raised two offspring, and in winter all four regularly visited the base of our cherry tree to clear up under the feeders. We blogged about them here in December last year.

The youngsters have now been driven off, in the same way that Pinknose was driven away by her parents from their territory further up the millstream two years ago. In the millstream immediately outside our kitchen window is a patch of yellow Flag Iris [iris pseudacorus] l'iris faux-acore. The patch has been expanding slowly over the years. In winter it is nothing but a patch of blackened stumps, then at the end of February shoots began to appear. Now the green spears are tall enough to provide cover for a moorhen nest, which is built from twigs and scraps of vegetation.


According to the books (and as we observed) the male does most of the fetching and carrying, passing pieces to the female who does most of the building.

Male with a branch

 He is readily distinguished from her by the white tail coverts (the feathers under and to either side of the black tail) which are fanned out for display, both aggressively and in courtship. In the case of the male, the tail coverts are permanently spread partially, in preparation to confront any of the other moorhens along our stretch. There is a visible white strip of at least a centimetre on either side of his tail, whereas the female shows only a white line or nothing at all. His bright red frontal plate is also broader, squarer and lumpier than his mate's.

Male on left: Female on right.

They communicate in gentle chucks and clucks late into the night. One morning he brought in a particularly large piece of vegetation. She clucked at him and swam away. "OK, you brought it, you fit it"!

On the morning of 29th April a single brown-splashed white egg, almost round, appeared in the nest. They both brooded it intermittently, the male being somewhat clumsy with it and nearly kicking it into the water. They continued to visit the feeder area together. Until...

During the afternoon and evening of 29th April, 2.1 centimetres (almost an inch) of rain fell. By the morning of 1st May, the stream had risen by over a foot and the nest was awash. The egg was gone.

The waterlogged nest site.

The couple stoically built higher. The following day, the water level had fallen again, the nest platform was well clear of the water, and there was another egg! A couple of days later there were two eggs, the parents still brooding intermittently.

The last time we got the opportunity to see the eggs, there were four of them. Both Pinknose and her mate are now brooding solidly, meanwhile keeping a wary red-rimmed eye on us as we look down from the bedroom. They have bent over the iris leaves around the nest and interlaced them, creating a neat bower which keeps a little of the rain off. The water level remains high, though when it drops the birds have a bit of a scramble to reach their nest platform. The iris started to flower today, immediately above the nest. Let's hope it brings them luck!

The 'second' egg

Pinknose in the bower....

And Mr. Pinknose taking his turn.

Improving the Aigronne part II

The planned amenagement of the Aigronne valley continued rapidly this spring between Le Grand Pressigny and at least Charnizay. The work we blogged about here to improve the river flow has settled in nicely, with green algae and sediment softening the whiteness of the new stone. The "restoration" of the riverside vegetation has proved rather more controversial.

Acting to preserve the environment

Vegetation in a bad state:

     presence of unstable trees, leaning, withering, dead
     poplars in great numbers
     zones inaccessible to users (fishermen... )
     presence of trunks and branches in the bed of the river

Work done:

     Cutting down trees threatening to fall into the river in the medium term
     Creation of clearings to enable users to reach the river
     Selective removal of encumbrances on the river bed

Many of the poplar plantations in this area are way beyond any economic return, being good for nothing but firewood. Poplar is an excellent constructional timber, and according to one tradition we have heard, new parents plant poplars on the birth of a daughter, with the eventual proceeds to pay for her dowry. That would make a poplar harvest at about twenty years old, but many of these trees are much older. They are loaded with heavy balls of mistletoe (gui), and many trunks have heart rot.

Rotten poplar trunks near Le Moulin Neuf

The stump in the foreground of the picture above typifies the problem trees. It is all that remains of a poplar that crashed across the road in last winter's storms, which tipped it over roots and all. The stump has been carefully relocated, to preserve the line of the riverbank and the streamlet that empties into the river via the ditch.

It is good to see so many of these rotten old poplars waiting to be taken away. We are speculating whether some of the large piles of "lop and top" such as the one on the far bank are awaiting a mobile chipper so the scrap wood can be made into pellets for fuel.

 
But the scale of clearing along the riverbanks is causing some riverains some concern. Along the Aigronne. and its tributaries such as the Rémillon below La Celle Guenand, all the riverside trees and shrubs, regardless of species, have been coppiced (cut to the ground) in some places. Yohann Sionneau, the river technician, insists that his team have been removing nothing but poplars, in accordance with their policy. But, he said, some individual proprietors, working on their own stretches of river, had been rather too enthusiastic.

Bare banks - not much cover here!

Coppicing will not kill the living trees, and is necessary from time to time, but for so many proprietors to do it simultaneously is "too much" as our neighbour Anne said. The trees will regrow enough to provide some cover in a couple of years. However, before that happens the amount of shade along the Aigronne - a premier trout stream - between Charnizay and Le Grand Pressigny has been massively reduced, all at once. In hot weather the water will become warm, the oxygen level will fall and the fish will die. We have heard from someone involved with La Gaule Pressignoise (our local fishing association) that of a recent release of trout, six were picked up dead.

The trees and shrubs along the river provide an essential wildlife corridor, linking isolated patches of woodland and enabling birds, mammals and insects to find food or a mate or a nest site or somewhere to roost. The cover will grow back, but right now the banks are bald. We have not seen a single squirrel this winter - we saw them regularly last year. However we have heard three great spotted woodpeckers drumming simultaneously at different points along our still-covered stretch of riverbank. We have not yet heard an oriole, that lover of poplar plantations - many poplars have gone, but there are still plenty left for the orioles.

Wildlife corridor along the Rémillon

First cuckoo of spring

We heard our first cuckoo cuculus canorus coucou gris yesterday! It sounded more like an "oo-cuck-oo", rather hoarse and rusty, and just the one call, so he was probably just passing through. No photo, naturally - we didn't see him, but the cuckoo has actualy quite a weak call, so if you can hear him, he's close enough to see.

Taking the sun

I couldn't resist these two little European Pond Terrapins [Emys orbicularis] Cistude d'europe. They were taking the sun this afternoon in full view of the new hide at the étang de  la Sous, just along from the Maison de la Nature in the Brenne. A lovely day, to be described more fully shortly.

Cistudes in the sun

Cranes today

Just as we got back from a shopping trip at 5:30 this afternoon, Pauline was closing the gate when she heard that unmistakeable trumpetting from the direction of the wood across the road. A flight of cranes was passing behind the wood and heading away from us towards the northeast - too far away to photograph or count. Tim thought there could be a couple of hundred.
They came over last year on the 21st and you will see from records with that entry, our record from 2008 shows we saw them on the 24th. Looking at last years pictures, this group seemed to be much the same size.

Black hats in the cherry tree

On Monday night, the temperature in our verger fell below -20°C, according to our weather station. It has not risen above freezing since Sunday. In this severe weather, we have seen several species using our bird feeders for the first time, including cirl bunting, collared dove and great spotted woodpecker.

Picture of Weather Station readings showing the lowest temperature yesterday!! [And what it got up to by 6.30.]

A male Blackcap (Sylvia Atricapila) Fauvette à Tête Noire has started helping himself to a couple of apples that we hung in our cherry tree. This handsome fellow, with his dove-grey cloak and smart black cap, is a member of the warbler familiy and a familiar summer visitor, but is resident in this part of France and in parts of southern England. We've seen winter Blackcaps (browncaps, if female/juvenile), but he was a first on the feeders.

Even apples turning to cider-mash are needed by this male Blackcap

The other, slightly more unusual, species is the Reed Bunting (Emberiza Schoeniclus) Bruant des Roseaux. In summer, the male Reed Bunting has a black head and bib, separated by a splendid cream moustache. In winter he retains the moustache, but his head becomes striped in shades of grey and his bib becomes more or less speckled with grey. He mainly feeds on the ground under the cherry tree among the dunnocks, blackbirds, song thrushes and moorhens, under a light rain of seeds kicked out of the feeders by the goldfinches.

A chilly looking male Reed Bunting

We only get the occasional greenfinch or chaffinch at the cherry tree feeders - our best customers there by far are the great tits, blue tits, house sparrows and goldfinches. Here they have a choice of peanuts, wild bird mixture, fat balls and home-made fat blocks. A feeder full of black sunflower seeds hangs from a young willow in the meadow. There the finches are the main customers, both at the feeder and accompanying several young pheasants on the ground.

The Field Feeders
From left: Female Greenfinch, Goldfinch on feeder and Greater-Spotted Woodpecker on his way to the fat balls.
The fat ball feeder is a coiled tube of fencing wire... cost = zero!
It allows fat balls to be used without the netting - now considered to be dangerous to birds' safety.

Despite today's unscheduled snow, there are signs of spring in the meadow. The robins are chasing each other around the cherry tree with their usual aggression. A pair of hares started boxing before disappearing into the blackthorns on the riverbank. Two female blackbirds are disputing rights of possession under the cherry tree. The male finches are starting to look splendid in their summer costumes. By providing food for the small birds we are setting out a dining table for the sparrowhawks, a no win situation I'm afraid. At least we can protect the birds from the cats to some extent. We have set up a chickenwire screen around the foot of the cherry tree to stop the cats rushing the ground-feeders there. Before the snow, Jerry would sit inside it, being teased by the wrens who kept just out of pouncing distance, but it's too cold there for him now.

Greater-Spotted Woodpecker on his way...

Sad little bundle of feathers

Today we had a steady fall of fine snow which tailed off towards lunchtime, leaving the ground with a covering of about ten centimetres. Baron, our black tom cat, was beginning to get cabin fever and begged to be let out. Alas, he caught a Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) Pipit Farlouse, which was foraging along the side of the hanger. Normally if you get to him quickly, he will release the bird unharmed and it will fly away, scolding. This time the little creature died in Tim's hand, although it had no sign of injury. On checking it over, there felt to be no flesh on its breast and it weighed only 15.1 grams.

Poor lttle scrap

According to Birds of the Western Palaearctic, the average weight for a healthy adult meadow pipit in autumn (and it has been autumnal up to very recently) is 18 grams.  Also listed are mortality weights of around 12 to15gms. The tip of the tail is quite worn, suggesting that this is an older bird. We think it was starving, exhausted and cold, and the shock of capture by a cat was the last straw. Until the cold spell started, there were plenty of insects around for it to eat. Its fate shows how quickly a small bird can run out of energy in cold weather.
Also worth noting is that this would have been [and technically still was] a new species for us here... we've seen them up on the 'tops' but never around here in the valley... so it had been driven to seek food in new areas.

The guilty party was sent to his basket, which is on the windowsill of our bedroom. Remarkably, he went!