Crane weather

Cranes, 4th March 2013

Last night (18th February) just before 9:30 we heard the unmistakeable bugling of a flight of Common Cranes passing overhead. Impossible to tell how many: we guessed about 60. They were heading up the Aigronne in a generally East-North-East direction. Two hours later, another, bigger (noisier) flight passed over, this timie heading due North. We recorded that one as at least 300, but still it was very much a guess.

Knowing that big flocks of migrating birds occasionally show up on weather radar, I had a look this morning at the Meteo60 web site. The radar map showed two blue streaks leading North-Northeast from the Paris basin toward the Belgian border. The satellite view showed clear skies. I am willing to bet that these blue streaks were cranes, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of them.

Rain Radar map 19 February 2017

When we zoomed in, the bigger of the two patches by far appeared to originate in a large area of marshland just north of the river Oise between Creil and Compiègne. These look ideal spots for cranes to roost overnight. At this higher level of detail, it was possible to see waves of birds on the animated radar map as they left their overnight pitstop. The other patch seemed to come from an area north of the Marne, not too far from the Lac du Der.

Sunset squadron, 8th March 2013

By confirmation, the LPO Champagne-Ardennes site grus-grus records a massive movement of cranes over the past 24 hours. In Hesse, southern Germany, thousands passed overhead at night. Yesterday's map includes, for a change, records from Indre-et-Loire! Something tells me the crane-watchers in Hesse are going to have a busy day today.

It's raining siskins

This mild, wet winter has seen quite a change in the population of overwintering small birds. Conspicuous by their complete absence are the blackcaps. Reed and corn buntings and stonechats are present but not in their usual numbers. Chiffchaffs and white wagtails were around in early winter but we have not seen one in the valley for some time. A truly remarkable sight was a flock of several hundred (probably) female and immature wagtails feeding alongside rooks, starlings and jackdaws and heavens knows what else on the tops above Chaumussay in January, so many it was like a blizzard. A lack of binos prevented a definite identification and when we went back they had moved on.

What we have instead, to our great pleasure, is a swarm of siskins (carduelis spinus, tarins des aulnes). We first met these gregarious little finches in Cala San Vicente, Majorca, during a memorable holiday when we could only get around on foot or by public transport. Simply staying put forced us to examine the wildlife in our local environment, including the gardens of our villa.

Mr and Mrs Siskin enjoying a good meal of peanuts

The siskins have taken to the peanut feeder in particular, displacing the house sparrows and greenfinches and holding their own against the great tits.

If another bird comes too close, both male and female will half-open their wings and spread their tail, flashing their underside in the interloper's face. The female presents her streaked cream fluffed-up body and pale yellow forked tail. The male delivers a flash of vivid yellow tail against an almost black background of primary feathers.

When will it be my turn?

Frequently, they tumble into the air and a punch-up ensues.

Fight! Fight!

Some funny looking pheasants

We have numerous gamebirds in the valley, Partridge, both Grey (perdix perdix) perdrix grise  and Redlegged (alectoris rufa) perdrix rouge,and Common Pheasant (phasianus colchicus) faisan de colchide. In summer we hear Quail calling from the field just across the road and from our meadow, often heard but seldom seen. Last year was a particularly good year for them.

The population of these species has regularly been augmented by the release of cage-reared birds (d'élévage). Such introductions have contributed to the variations in colour to be seen in the pheasant population.

Here's Jeremy - last year's king of the hill

And here's the new kid in town

At the end of January a most unusual individual visited us - a female pheasant, as could be seen by comparison with the other females with her.
She is almost black - actually a very dark blue-green - with a blue tail and silver primaries. She seemed rather more shy than her companions, who crowded down to the area under the feeders in gaggles. There were ten female pheasants feeding together at one point. She only just came within the distance my Fuji SL1000 can manage and nowhere near the feeders.

Hold your head up, gel. That's a bit better.

We identified her as a melanistic Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus mut. tenebrosus), as much from the company she keeps as from the colour. She is a mutant, or a throwback to an ancestral hybrid. We have not seen her again.

Struggling for a closeup

Meanwhile on 5th February, this male individual was spotted in a garden in Pont de Ruan and recorded for posterity on Faune Touraine.

Copyright Jean-Claude Domenger, avec nos remerciements à Philippe Diard, Faune Touraine

This individual was logged as a green pheasant (phasianus versicolor), faisan versicolor, a Japanese species and as such a collection escapee, but in our opinion he's more likely to be a melanistic common pheasant too, or a hybrid. His back and rump are blue when they should be olive-grey, and he lacks the beautifully patterned feathers draped around his shoulders like a stole.

Interesting that they should both turn up within the same week.

Ours is most definitely not a female Green Pheasant as they look almost exactly like a female common pheasant. Green and Common pheasants can interbreed and have escaped from aviaries, so he may be a throwback to an ancestral Green.
UPDATE: these melanistic common pheasants are known in the North of England as Blue Pheasants, and in Norfolk, confusingly, as Green Pheasants.

And this is a beautiful Green pheasant from Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium,
 Creative Commons's Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license

Melanistic birds like these are often used by gamekeepers as markers, because they are so visible. Groups of female pheasants stay together outside the breeding season (in other words inside the hunting season) and if he can see the black one, he knows where his birds are.

The statistics for these releases is astonishing: according to a study in 2008 on behalf of the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (ONCFS) a total of ten million are released annually across France. Despite the releases, the ONCFS found that the number of pheasants in France is decreasing.

The ONCFS studies highlighted the patently obvious: that the ability of cage-bred pheasants to adapt to life in the field is poor and becoming poorer.
In order to provide that volume, breeders have a very small gene pool to dip into. The birds are in-bred. Not intellectually gifted to start with, pheasants are getting increasingly stupid. I can vouch for that: I once had to brake to a standstill on a road in North Yorkshire that was blocked by escaped young pheasants milling around unable to decide what to do. They are dismissed by French shooters as 'faisans de tir', and by anglophone hunters as "no fun to shoot any more". I will leave to the imagination the sort of hunter that shoots them.

The ONCFS has put in place a plan that will develop a stock of pheasants by natural population growth.

This includes

• a three year moratorium on the shooting of naturally - reared pheasants
• a ban in certain places on the release of pheasants
• released birds to wear wing-rings or "ponchos" indicating that they may be hunted. 
• certain communes have a "plan de chasse faisan". These apply different combinations of the three different actions above. Our commune is not one of them, so release and shooting go on as normal here.

A local bird wearing a yellow "poncho" turned up three years ago at Braye-sous-Faye.
Colin & Elizabeth blogged about it here.

Pheasant with a poncho, plus pheasant-wrangler's thumb.
From Ducatillon sales brochure, according to whom this is a female.
According to anyone else, this is a male.
Not just the birds then.

Every release, be it a spring release of young adults or a summer release of juveniles, is to be followed up with a population study to see how it pans out.

You can find the website of the Fédération de la Chasse de L'Indre-et-Loire here, and their page on pheasants here.

February Filldyke

Here's the wet weather summary for February.....

February 2014

Temperature (°C):
Mean (min+max)   8.3 (Mean Minimum     3.5 / Mean Maximum     13.2)
Minimum           -0.9 day 03
Maximum          19.2 day 24
Highest Minimum  8.5 day 20
Lowest Maximum   8.0 day 11
Air frosts       3

Rainfall (mm):
Total for month  64.2 [2013 - 49.5mm]
Wettest day      12.3 day 13
High rain rate   7.2 day 08
Rain days        18... 12 in 2013

Wind (km/h):
Highest Gust     45.4 day 07
Average Speed    5.6
Wind Run         3783.8 km

Pressure (mb):
Maximum          1022.2 day 27
Minimum          985.0 day 10

February 2013

Temperature (°C): 
Mean (min+max)   5.4 (Mean Minimum     0.5 / Mean Maximum     10.3)
Minimum          -4.2 day 20
Maximum          15.4 day 19
Highest Minimum  5.9 day 01
Lowest Maximum   5.5 day 12
Air frosts       9

Rainfall (mm):
Total for month  49.5 [2012 - 12.6mm]
Wettest day      20.4 day 01
High rain rate   18.0 day 09
Rain days        12

Wind (km/h):
Highest Gust     36.7 day 05
Average Speed    0.7
Wind Run         334.9 km

Pressure (mb):
Maximum          1031.5 day 03
Minimum          995.5 day 10

<<---------------ooo000OOO{}OOO000ooo--------------->>

Can spring be far behind?

At last we have had some weather that permits us to sit outside with a cup of tea in the afternoon, to hang out some washing, to do some tree work in the meadow.

After lunch yesterday* we were doing the first of these when an unmistakable braying was heard.
Cranes!#      

The moon provided a good backdrop to the last pictures.

A small flight was coming along the ridge opposite our house, between the Aigronne and Claise valleys. Tim "rushed" into the house to get his camera, as fast as he could go while wearing "the wrong trousers" - chainsaw protection - while I kept an eye on the flock, which was heading into the wind and not progressing terribly fast.

A bit blurry... I had the camera on Manual focus and forgot!

 
Tim fired off as many pictures as he could as the flock swirled around to follow the Aigronne, and I looked at them down the wrong end of Tim's binos (dammit - I'll get used to them one day).
Tim reckons he can count 52 birds in the group - much easier with digital cameras!

Better this shot... but still not the best I've taken! But you can count them...

 
Now to report the sighting to the LPO Champagne-Ardennes group which is coordinating records of crane migration in Europe and parts south and east.


For another rarely seen, large, migratory bird please follow this link to Niall & Antoinette's "Chez Charnizay" "erm? Non- Grue" post... and they saw grues yesterday, too! And got some smashing pix!!

# Crane (Grus grus) Grue cendrée

* Wednesday 20th

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.

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!