Weir, art thou going? River improvements part III

Our posts here and here about the programme of improvements to the Claise basin described the achievements in our corner of the Aigronne valley, out of 77km of river bank works in the last three years.

Now operations have started on the section of the Claise between Le Grand Pressigny and Etableau. If you go down the rue des Réaux towards Abilly you will see, or rather you won't see, the familiar line of poplars screening the decaying former furniture factory building near the déchetterie.

Stumps, logs and branches next to the Iron Bridge

The trees that remain, apart from the big oak, are mostly small alders.

View towards the weir from the Iron Bridge. The house behind the high hedge to the right is for sale.

.

See "Improving the Aigronne Part II" for a translation of the poster

Poplar is an excellent timber, widely used for construction throughout France, and good poplar wood is valuable. The tradition was, when a daughter was born, to plant a poplar plantation to pay for her dowry when she got married. But these trees were too far gone. The smaller notice describes how the trees will be disposed of. Given that a Prefectorial edict obliges the commune to do the work; that turning dead and fallen trees and branches into biomass is not easy to do cost-effectively; and that the cost of hiring the mulching equipment needed to compost the remains is beyond the resources of the town council, SARL ETREN is authorised to burn what it cannot turn into biomass.

The field behind the digger is scheduled as building plots

The poplars were rotting at the heart, potentially dangerous, and they had to go. The weir is in the background.

You can read the small poster if you can fly. But it's important!

Be that as it may, the poplars were in the way of the really big undertaking.   Under the European directive on water courses and La loi sur l’eau et les milieux aquatiques (LEMA), the commune has to remove (literally, to "suppress") the weir, and return the river to a semblance of its original state. Given that water mills have been in existence since classical times, we are talking prehistory here.

La Nouvelle République in its article of 22nd November 2014 describes the weir project thus:

in May 2015, the barrage will be removed and the bed of the Claise re-aligned, rebuilding part of the banks with rock, earth and pebbles, with the objective of reducing the width, giving back to the river an appearance of the original bed, permitting the water level to rise and restoring the rate of flow.

The weir from the town bridge

The weir was built in the 1970s to provide a swimming area and sustain the water level in periods of low water. It is now obsolete. Nobody wants to swim there: the water is dark and forbidding, the bottom is squidgy and covered with leathery, slippery poplar leaves, and there's a heated public swimming pool on the other side of town. La NR continues:

the prefectorial mandate governing the operation of the weir obliges the commune to keep it open for nine months of the year. This obligation has never been respected. The repeal of this mandate will require the community of communes of Touraine du Sud (CCTS) to remove the weir and return the site to a fit state. The CCTS's land management brief makes the work possible. A partnership with the region [Centre], the département [Indre et Loire] and the water agency [for the Loire and Brittany] allows the rehabilitation of the site to be incorporated in the restoration program. This new project will be 100% subsidised.

 See also the CCTS web site here and here.

Suppress the barrage? Sounds simple enough. No big deal. A bigger deal will be the heavy lorries thundering past carrying the "rock, earth and pebbles" to the site and thundering even louder as they return empty at top speed. A major issue will be disposing of the tonnes of concrete of the barrage itself and the spillway, and the unknown tonnage of silt (la vase) deposited behind the weir. Where will it go? How much is there? How many lorryloads?

And just what is meant by the river's original bed? When the ground is saturated, it is easy to trace old meanders of the Aigronne, for example in the fields south of Rivau. The Claise valley between le GP and Descartes opens out to become several kilometres wide, the site of a prehistoric swamp/lake bed. Watermills go back to the times of Alexander the Great; human life in the Aigronne and Claise valleys goes back to the Upper Palaeolithic, 350,000 years ago. How far back should we go in restoring the river to its "original state"?

For us, the biggest issue of all will be when the sights are turned on Richard's weir and sluice gate that direct  the Aigronne's flow into the bief that runs past our house and the Moulin de Favier. That weir has been there for at least two hundred years, and is shown on the Napoleonic cadastral map of 1812. The mills existed when the Cassini  maps were drawn in the 17th century, and, since La Forge was an undershot mill, there must have been a weir too. The Cassini map does not show such fine detail. The sluice is new (1980s) and was constructed along with the étang. It is left permanently open.

The Dechartes have a history of the Moulin de Favier going back to the 12th Century. The habitat supports at least one nationally proteced species - the water vole - and local rarities like the Large Pincertail dragonfly. We have a duty to preserve la patrimoine, be it history or nature. On the other hand, everyone has a right to clean water, including the migratory fish such as eels which are blocked by such barrages.. I'm not quite sure how turning our bief into a stagnant ditch full of mosquitos will improve the milieu aquatique.

And the history of Le Moulin de la Forge is a matter for another post.

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!!

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

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?

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

Electric Fishing at La Celle-Guénand

We read with interest in La Nouvelle République of 16th November of an exercise to measure water quality on the Rémillon just north of its junction with the Aigronne, about 2.5 km upstream of us. This is a further part of the first tranche of the planned works launched by the Community of Communes of Southern Touraine earlier this year in the restoration of the watercourses comprising the Claise basin. What follows is my best attempt at a translation of the article. I claim no responsibility for the science!

An electric fishing exercise took place at the end of October at La Gachère, in La Celle-Guénand with the aim of getting to know the fish population of these watercourses but also to judge the effect of the works on the fish.

Copyright La Nouvelle Republique

The principle is as follows: a generator produces a continuous rectified current of between 300 and 600 volts (400 in this case). The negative pole is placed in the water at a fixed spot; the positive pole is connected to an insulating handle with a metal ring on the end from which the current flows. Once the positive pole is lowered into the water, an electric field is created and the fish swim at first towards the source of the current. This is called "forced swimming". Swimming directly up to the researchers, they are easily caught in a landing net for they are semi-conscious. They quickly recover and do not take any lasting harm.
The species of the specimens captured is determined and they are then weighed, measured and released undamaged. Each species of fish is characteristic of a type of environment. For example, brown trout (Salmo trutta fario, truite fario) prefer cool, swift-flowing and well-oxygenated waters, whereas freshwater bream (Abramis brama, brème) prefer slower, warmer flows. The objective is to check whether a watercourse described as "salmonicole" (rapid, cool and oxygenated water) is degraded or not by studying its fish population. If the fishing exercise reveals a large number of fish characteristic of slow warm waters, it can be ascertained that the watercourse is very degraded.
The results of late October's fishing exercises in the Rémillon at La Celle-Guénand shows a quite well preserved site with the presence of brown trout and species characteristic of salmonicole watercourses:

• chabot, (Cottus gobio), [Miller's Thumb or Bullhead or Sculpin]
• lamproie de planer (Lampetra planeri) [Brook Lamphrey]
• loche franche (Barbatula barbatula) [Stone Loach]

At the Sauvaget site, at Bossay sur Claise, the location is very silty. Only one trout and some sticklebacks (Pungitius spp, épinochettes) show that the watercourse is very degraded in this sector but nevertheless retains the capacity to support trout.

Improving the Aigronne

Just recently, a big poster appeared by the Aigronne bridge, advertising aménagements du lit (improvements to the riverbed).

Aménagements du lit

Then a succession of dumper trucks began clattering to and fro past the house, delivering their contributions to a series of piles of white stone, mainly small but including some very big ones. At peak there were four different trucks passing at approximately quarter-hourly intervals. Then a big digger arrived and started nibbling away at the stones, depositing it carefully on the river bed between Gatault downstream of us and Le Moulin de Chevarnay upstream.
We had learned of the plan to improve the flow of the rivers and streams that make up the Claise basin at the Fête de la Chasse at Preuilly sur Creuse, but we hadn't appreciated that it was going to happen so soon. As Yohann Sionneau, the river technician, explained to us, many of the river banks in our area are effectively canalised in places, the numerous poplar trees at even spacings with every trace of cover for small wildlife scrupulously removed. The flow is too smooth and uniform between these pared-down banks, reducing thediversity of habitat. In places the bed has become too wide, so during periods of reduced flow, particularly in summer, the water becomes very shallow, reducing the oxygen levels. There is also too much silt, denying the fish access to the gravel beds where they spawn. All these factors diminish the biodiversity of the Aigronne. The project was financed by the water authority for the Loire and Brittany; the prefecture of Region Centre; and the community of communes of Touraine du Sud.

Using the stones, shingle banks and rocky outcrops have been created, so that the flow rate and depth of water are more varied. Increased turbulence allows the water to pick up more oxygen. When water levels are lower, the shingle banks reduce the width of the channel, so that such water that does flow is deeper. Thus the river bed is improved for wildlife, especially aquatic species such as - er - trout. Oh what a giveaway.

Destined for the riverbed

The work was done by a large digger and, whilst the large stones were dumped on the side, the main loads of smaller calcaire were dumped directly into the river. The digger then collected a bucket load and took it to where it was to be used.

This did make the river very cloudy to begin with as the powdered calcaire was washed out... but the river is now nice and clean again. We'll put up more shots of these bits over the seasons.

Bad GPS? Food source? Migration?

This evening I was sitting on the bench outside the house [to be] planning how to tackle the next stage [with a glass of Anglo-Dutch Wildflower in hand] when I noticed that hundreds of Swallows, House Martins and the occasional group of what looked like Wagtails [no binos, so couldn't confirm.... just going on jizz] passing EAST overhead. Everytime I thought they'd stopped another flight came over... there was group after group [not all directly overhead... to misquote Tennyson "Some to the left of me, some to the right... straight into the east flew the X-hundred"]Straight down the Aigronne Valley toward Le Petit-Pressigny.... BUT, was someones Tom-Tom misfunctioning?
An hour later they all came back, drift after drift... or, as I later thought, were they following a rich food source down the valley and then returning to roost.
We thought we'd seen the last of the Martins and Swallows last week.... were these Northern ones on their way South, tapping a rich food source... or was it just bad programming by the makers of Swallow-Tom?

Once bitten...

After a hectic weekend with a lot of wildlife about I am going to write about.... CLEGS!
Horseflies to some... family Tabanidae to others.... these are large insects with a particularly nasty bite [to me anyway].
I was first bitten by one in 1970 and my whole arm came up like a well stuffed sausage so, whenever they are about, I declare war.
That said, I should only kill half of them as the males tend to be vegetarian [nectar feeders].... but I'm not going to stop and ask!

When I was bitten in '70, it was able to get through an ex-US Army jacket and my workshirt [but that was probably nothing compared to a horses hide!], all four layers quite tight fitting [the army jacket was three layers thick] so if they are about I now tend to wear very loose fitting clothing which reduces the contact points... except for exposed skin.
To me the most fascinating thing about the horsefly group are the eyes... the one shown here has very clear colouring on the eyes... this varies between species. [You will notice from the eyes that this one supports Jamaica and is wearing wrap-around sunglasses!] The colour also fades away after death [I can vouch for this!!]

What allowed me to get this close was the fact that these were feeding on the bonnet of the '56 2CV. They were probably males as they seemed to be drinking the dried drips of aphid sap on the bonnet [the car was parked under our lime].
Their feeding method was to use the front feet in a sweeping motion across the surface towards their head, covering in the process about a centimetre circle.
They would then extend their proboscis and work over the small patch immediately under their head.
That completed, they moved forward about a centimetre dabbing the proboscis on the bonnet as they went.
They then stopped and repeated the 'harvesting' action.
They moved up and down the bonnet in straight lines.... turning and shuffling sideways to do a return sweep.

According to Chinery [Collins; Insects of Britain and Western Europe 1986] about 160 species occur in Europe.... the one here is most likely to be Tabanus bromius which has a very simple eye pattern [although there are a number of similar species this is the commonest (Chinery)]. The actual Cleg Fly [Haematopota pluvialis] is much smaller and unlikely to be the one that got through my jacket.

February 24th 2008

Clear sunny day, warm, wind SW moderate. Large flock of Common Crane gathering over Etableau and flew off NE in three large skeins [upward of 200 birds] followed by a second small group that flew straight towards us.

The noise was incredible. They flew straight overhead and I almost fell over backwards [Falklands Penguin Syndrome!] as I took the following shot ... I was saved from total embarassment by the trunk of a willow!

19th February to 6th March 2005 Observations from Nature Diary and Notebooks

19th Feb - 6th March 2005 [Dead Season, ha-ha]
Brenne [Visit on a bright and sunny day] -
Loads of Great White Egrets and G-C Grebes. Also cormorants, lapwings, gulls.
Small flocks [20'ish] of Pochard and Wigeon at Foucault.
Very little else except a Red Kite and Little Egrets
.
La Forge - Accumulated observations...
[Weather V.cold - sunny with occasional snowy days - water froze in minus 12 degrees Celsius temperature.]
Barn Owl seen on road to village numerous times after dark.
Black Redstart around grinding his little steel balls.
Blackbirds, Robins, large flocks of Fieldfares.
Kestrels, Buzzards and a raptor with very white blaze at base of tail flew across field and meadow and up to the trees below la Jarrie. Female Hen Harrier or Monty? definately not a buzzard.
Saw a Water Vole by our bridge....
also three Coypu [ragondins] by baby poplars toward Bezuard and on the bank between Richard's etang and the bief. >>>
Found a fresh Barn or Tawny Owl pellet on the concrete lid of water meter mains tap.

From the Nature Diary:

20th
Dry, cold, sunny. Bodie the buzzard calling - else very little moving.

21st
Sunny - snowed in evening - Loads of birds calling but little to see.

Ragondin [Coypu]

22nd
Snow showers and sunshine breaks - saw coypu in young poplar grove opposite the wier.
Heard tawny, barn and little owls calling after dark [around 8pm]

24th
Found deadish catfish in the bief [there was a little bit of muscular twitching]

22nd to 26th October 2004 Observations from Notebooks

22nd La Forge
Juvenile Peregrine flew over house towards woods.

24th Brenne
La Gabriere almost drained... 20 plus Great White Egret, 60 plus Little Egret as well as Grey Heron, Shag, Black-headed Gull, Grebes Great-Crested and Black-neck.... all fishing like mad!!

26th La Forge
Little Owl in silhouette on the barn roof... calling to partner near bridge... challenged by the Barn Owl.

Also discovered Deptford Pink growing in the drive!

Deptford Pink

21 -29 March 2004 - Observations from the Nature Diary

21st
Trip to the Brenne... 
All seen at La Cherine
Great White Egret
Hen Harrier [male]
Honey Buzzard
Pintails, Teal, Shovellers
except a Grey Wagtail... seen on returning to La Forge
Also Barn owl by road bridge near Moulin du Favier as we returned from a visit to GP for a meal.

22nd
Muskrat swam past at lunchtime
Saw wren, robin, white wagtails
Stonechat and a warbler [buff & pale-buff]
Put car away in the laiterie and disturbed a Black Redstart

23rd
Small warbler by river [very visible cream eye-stripe - pale green and buff-green - probably a willow-chiff]

24th
Swallows appeared at around 5.50pm [along with the sun]
Pair of Buzzards wheeling over the woods in front of the house.

25th
Hen Harrier [male] along below Grandmont towards Petit Pressigny.
Hobby dropped from over the grange [barn] into the field by the willows and then flew off. It was trying to catch Swallows but failed miserably.

26th Woodcock flew over late afternoon
27th And again but I had bino's with me this time... for Woodcock, read Snipe!!

28th
Visit to Brenne again...
Saw Black kite, loads of Black-necked Grebes [at La Gabriere], Purple Heron plus assorted other species and a roost of Cormorants.
Large raptor took off from our meadow on returning - probably a buzzard [ it was behind the barn and away before there was a chance of identifying it. Swallows present AM as we left for the Brenne and heard a buzzard calling from the wood out front.

29th
Chiffchaff calling and hopping around us as we planted trees by Richard's etang. Female harrier [? species... too fast] came low across meadow in front of us, thro' trees and up across fields towards La Jarrie.

As a list of sightings:

Seen round La Forge
Birds seen:

Raptors:

• Barn Owl near Moulin du Favier [by road bridge]
  
• Buzzards
  
• Hen Harrier [male]
  
• Hobby
  
• Harrier [female] - came low across field and up thro' trees to La Jarrie.
  

Passerines:

• Grey Wagtail [by our bridge]
  
• White Wagtails
  
• Swallows [with Hobby in pursuit on one occasion]
  
• Robin
  
• Wren
  
• Black Redstart
  
• Stonechat
  
• Willow-Chiff
  
• Chiffchaff [called whilst being watched]
  

Waders:

• Snipe
  

Mammals:

• Muskrats
  

Visit to the Brenne:

• Hen Harrier [male]
  
• Honey Buzzard
  
• Black Kite
  

• Purple Heron
  
• Great White Egret
  

• Pintail
  
• Teal
  
• Shovellers
  

• Black-necked Grebes [loads - La Gabriere]
  

• Roost of Cormorants