A slight Hiatus on the Home Front....

or "Apologies for no major post last week..... or this, and this and that for that matter"

Sorry... with all this fine weather, and a need to get spuds in the ground at the right time this year... I hadn't pre-prepared anything...
But the moth trap has had two airings so far this year... and we've started to get visitors to the windows at night!
The Swallows are back... swinging in and out of the barn.... and paying a visit in here, too... which took a bit of juggling to create an escape route....
The Black Redstarts are back, as well....and the duck gave us a nice present the other day... a fresh egg that she'd laid on the fly down by the old apple tree.
How do we know it was fresh? Because anything like an egg down there wouldn't have lasted overnight....
A Little Egret had been fishing in the bief...and flew past the bedroom window just as I looked out... no need for binos...
The Nightingales are back... three singing males at least... and a Zizi was singing from the wall early doors... a Zizi is the Bruant Zizi... or Cirl Bunting... relative of the Yellowhammer... with a similar song but it keeps what it doesn't want a secret... "Little bit of bread and no..."
It misses out the "cheeeese"
We've got a group of young Viperene Snakes [Lat] Coulevre vipérine who have holed up together just inside the barn door... four is the maximum seen at one time.

So here are a few pictures taken recently.....

Here's the Bruant zizi... aka: Cirl Bunting.... zizi'ing his little heart out!!

There are four Viperene snakes in this picture
... count the heads... one sunbathing...
three in the gap 'twixt barn wall and the metal...
sunwarmed...
hinge.

Three from the moth trap....
R>L: a Brindled Beauty, a Small Lappet and a Lunar Marbled Brown....
the curate who named the last probably had cataracts.... it is all grey!!

 

A hoverfly.... hovering!

An Ichneumonid wasp...
possibly a female Ichneumon xanthorius based on looks and flight period.
{But, only experts can really tell... and not from photos!!}

Black Redstart [male].... showing his "shirt-tails"!

And finally... for the moment... an orb weaving spider.
Tetragnatha sp.... possibly Tetragnatha extensa which is the most common...
but I need the other side to be certain...and this one was...
thirty centimetres off the ground in stinging nettles!!

16 September 2010 - Snakes Alive

Came across this little fella [about 35cm long].... it is a young Viperine snake [Couleuvre vipérine or Vipère d'eau] Natrix maura.

Viperine snake [Couleuvre vipérine or Vipère d'eau] Natrix maura

Pauline used Planete Passion to get a fix on his identity.
Planete Passion state that they are very variable ["Its colouring is extremely variable, olive greens, greenish brown, yellowish brown, greys, yellowish orange and reddish browns. On its back are two rows of dark lines, angled backwards, which are often joined together to give a zigzag pattern."]... indeed the illustrations on their site show five different colourways and patterns. They also say "but if threatened it adopts a very similar intimidating pose to a Vipére" and whilst being manouvered for a photograph, it took up a strike pose and then relaxed and slid off in the direction I'd hoped. It moved very fast and in almost all shots is slightly blurred against the background. [I've sharpened them as best I can.]  Visit Planete Passion to get more information and see the other pictures.
This is the first "live" snake we've seen on the property.... the only other observations have been sloughed skins.
Thanks to Susan from Days on the Claise for this link to the reference on Reptiles and Amphibiens de France [it is an English Language site despite the french title]

Viperine snake showing a zig-zag pattern at the right

Viperine snake [head detail - note the round pupil]

Other observations today:

Suddenly the Swallows are gone.... as are the House Martins from town! Summer is finished!

A male Sparrow Hawk [Epevier d'Europe] took a small bird [probably young Goldfinch] in the Sunflowers next to the house. It came from the meadow at flower-top height and dove in directly in front of me. Came out again very swiftly and composed itself [and its prey] on a sunflower [tournesol] head and then flew back towards the meadow.