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.............................

Back on the rails

The Water Rail's back

Yes, the Water Rails [Rallus aquaticus] Rale d'Eau are back... and we've got two of them this year. We spotted them for the first time yesterday... and we know we've got two because Pauline was looking at one whilst I was trying to get the camera to focus on another! In the end I moved round and managed to get some good shots of the one Pauline was watching.

Water rail's best side...

Water Rail bankside....

Also the Dabchick (or Little Grebe) [Tachybaptus ruficollis] Grebe castagneux is back... but the only photo I got of that shows an out of focus pair of frilly knickers!

You take your right foot out and shake it all about!

What we seem to be observing is birds that normally are recorded on the etangs appear to translocate to running water... not migrate as the local guide book, "Les Oiseaux du Bassin de la Claise Tourangelle", seems to indicate. So, because we have the bief, we get more moorhens, plus the water rails and the dabchick in winter.... where they a more assured of a good meal as it would be a very hard freeze indeed that stopped the bief running completely.
Our resident moorhens that Pauline blogged about the other week don't need to migrate... they are on running water all the year round..

A teaser for the Weekend

Early September was our last posting.... and much has happened.
We've been a bit too busy to put much up lately... despite being assured that Winter is here by the return of the Dabchick and the Robins... and getting in the harvest and processing tomatoes as fast as we can because of the frosts.... nursing colds.... watching a possible juvenile Goshawk  up on the ridge opposite [but it never getting close enough to make a positive identification]...so we thought we'd better keep our readers entertained.
So here is a picture quiz!
What are these four?

Wotisit1

Wotisit2

Wotisit3

Wotisit4

This is coming up with the irritating "lightbox" effect... but I will leave it like that as it works quite well in this instance.... just remember to click on the white X in the top right hand corner to get back to the blog entry.

We will give you the answers next week.

Hopefully, the internet cable will be installed through to the house from the office by then... and it will mean we will be more able to write on the fly and posts will become more frequent!!