Starting to Twitter...

Everyone seems to twitter these days, so we thought we'd join in...
but only on this blog... and only about wildlife.

Twitter one:
We saw a Little Egret [Egretta garzetta] Aigrette garzette fly down the valley today....
now that might not seem much... they are quite common...
but not along here... it is the first we've seen...
but completes our set of egrets.

One of my brother's pictures... the yellow feet are very clear in this shot.

Twitter two:
A vast flock of waders grouped overhead last night...
three or four hundred... in bunches and 'W's...
too dark to see anything but silhouettes...
most probably Golden Plover looking for an open field...
and then settling to roost for the night.

Twitter three:
We now have a huge number of Great Tits [Parus major] Mésange charbonnière visiting...
we've put the feeders out again.

Urrrrg! Grey... no fishing.

This is the view from the bedroom window this morning... in fact all this morning and into the afternoon!

Somewhere, beyond the trees, is a wood!

I sat there, in bed, watching pigeons and jays come into view... and out of view... especially the pigeons who were flying found in circles... at one point a flight of grey ghosts flew past the other side of the trees.... urrrrg! Grey...

We were going to Le Louroux this morning for the "Grand Emptying"....
but visibility was very poor, as you can see, and the temperature outside was only zero centigrade...
it reached a whole three by noon!!

Also my shattered ankle was telling me that the weather was damp [as if I couldn't work that out for myself!]....
so with shooting paines [oops, Freudian slip there... thinking of fireworks to brighten the day] shooting pains making driving difficult we stayed in.

However, I did find some photographs of the Golden Plover/Lapwing flock I mentioned in the last post... taken in March 2010.... so here they are:

Click to enlarge these... the Golden Plover are the pale birds... and you can see why the Lapwing is also the Green Plover.

About a quarter of the way from the left in the first picture... and a third in on this... is a breeding plumage Golden Plover.

And in this picture he has walked fully into view... just at the bottom, in the group of three,  on the left...
he has a black belly, and a white patch just under the golden back.

Not my best pictures, but these were still a way off!

Lapwing update...

They did come back around coffee time today....
and I got some pictures that I shall share here [with descriptions after the photo.]
Click on all the photos to view them full size... they will open into a separate window.

There were about eight groups of Lapwings visible as one looked down the valley....
and ten or so groups of Golden Plover...
but they didn't join up as I watched...
which makes me think that last night's huge flock was a roosting gathering...
so following my update for today in the previous post....
they must have been away when there was barely enough light to see by.

This was the nearest grouping to me.... just over the lake.
There were more flights in the distance.
It is difficult to judge the size of the flocks when they are wheeling around so much....
but they can be counted from photographs...
but it is tedious and numbingly boring... but we may well have underestimated yesterdays flock...
in the middle view, the bottom group has a 'tongue' that projects towards the tree... it is about one sixth of the total... I counted it and there were at least 120 birds [before the group double in depth] which makes that group around 700 birds... and then there are the other two bunches above.
The flock we saw yesterday was bigger and denser... so may well have included the groups further down the valley.

The loose "W",  with some stragglers behind, in this picture are the Golden Plover.... it is one of the patterns to look for. The other pattern is a crescent shaped flock.
The birds at the bottom right of the picture are part of the main Lapwing flock.

Here is another flight of Golden Plover above some of the Lapwings... if you click on it to see it full size you will be able to see the difference in shape between the species. The "W" at the top is very clear in this image.

A lot of birdwatching is based on "jizz"... the way the bird flies; its size; the other birds that it is with; impression of colour; etc., etc.

Here's another picture taken one minute after the last of the above shots [10:37 to 10:41 for the above shots]

But these aren't either of above species... they are thrushes....
probably Fieldfares [the large ones]... and Redwings [the smaller]....
the wingshape and body outline tell me that... and knowledge of those species behaviour at this time of the year tell me the rest. No need to see colour sometimes.
Both species migrate into the region for the winter and are often in association with each other.
They are often seen around the local orchards.... feeding on the apples that were too small to pick and have been left on the tree.

More flocking Lapwings...

Our work this afternoon was interupted for a while as we watched a huge flock of Lapwings [Vanellus vanellus] Vanneau huppé and Golden Plovers [Pluvialis apricaria] Pluvier doré flying around, up and down this bit of the valley.

There are no pictures...
too busy watching....
and, when they settled, they were too distant for all but the 'scope...
and with the poor light...
impossible.

But I can have a go at describing what we saw...

Some large flocks of Lapwings gradually melded into one huge 'committee'...
silently swooping and wheeling around us.
Occasionally, like many committees...
they would split into smaller groups that seemed to want to go in different directions.

They would pick up other small bands that were coming in from either side of the valley.

They swooped and turned....
glided...
flapped around...
dived through the group next to them...
and formed back up again.

The flock seemed to grow and grow....

At that point...
amongst the cloud of swirling birds appeared a small flock of slightly smaller, narrow-winged waders...
these joined in with the swooping, diving, turning Lapwings.
All were semi-sillhoutted against a grey sky but we were pretty sure they'd be Golden Plover.

Then a few of the joint flock started to get lower and lower...
as if about to land...
and then driven by the committee urge they lifted again...
swirling to confuse raptors...
and us!

Time after time they repeated this... the sight of more than five hundred swirling waders is something to be marvelled at.

Then suddenly, they began to settle in the field next door....
spiralling down...
the spiral cloud getting denser as they descended....
all down, they all rose again and spiraled down...
and again and again!
Eventually they calmed down...
they'd decided to feed...
I went and got the big 'scope.

Focused the 'scope onto the flock and confirmed that the other waders were indeed Golden Plover, their golden plumage clear and , for the conditions, bright...
then, as one, they all rose...
but we'd already seen that they weren't feeding.
They'd been just standing there...
facing into the wind...
ready for take-off.

Again, they didn't go far....
and soon settled again.
This happened a couple more times before they settled properly...
and then more waders, both Lapwing and Golden Plover, appeared...
and also spiralled down to join them.

Although it was early, they were probably settling down to roost.

All in all, there must have been over 500 Lapwing and about half that number of Golden Plover settled in the field and with any luck, they'll still be here tomorrow morning having an early feed!

The last time we saw them in this number was north of Paris in October 2005... we wrote about them here.

24-11-2012 Update.... they'd gone!