Absent, but not inactive....

We haven't blogged for over two months...
it isn't because nothing has been happening....
far from it!

We've just been preoccupied with other things...
trying to recover the potager...
keep on top of the mowing...
fat chance of the latter, but the potager is now looking a lot better...
but the soil is still almost unworkable.

When there has been a break in the interminable rain, we've been out in the garden....
and, as a result, getting behind on everything.
There also haven't been the opportunities to take many photos...
other than flooded fields and meadows, grey skies...
and rain.
At one point, we even recommenced feeding the birds...

Then, the meadow...
well, only the side nearest the house can be mown with the ride-on...
the other half, towards the river will have to have the attention of Betsy in the first instance... once I can safely get her onto there without damaging the meadow soil, the machine or myself.
I mowed a very large area with Betsy...
to use for the cucurbit "maggot" and to clear a hunting area near the owl box...
I managed to get some off before the rains came...
but the rest, all the loosest stuff anyway, is somewhere near Nantes!!
That which remains, muddy as it is, is still in a very shallow pond!!

I have managed to get to.... paddle to in reality...
the owl box camera trap... and there has been plenty of activity...
but, as I have no idea of how to get a video onto "Blodgja" that is visible on all platforms...and not just Windows, you'll have to put up with stills!

This is Madame... at 5pm one afternoon...
having some rest and recuperation...
and, probably some fresh air...
the stink in there must be awful!!

And this is M'sieur... around 10pm the following evening...
he's brought a nice fat vole for Madame and the sprogs...
it is either in his right claw... or on the platform...
in the video that followed, you could see him pick it up...
in his beak, before entering the box.

So... as you see... we've been absent, but not inactive!!

Elusive visitors...

Long time - no blog post....
We usually have a hiatus around this time of the year, there is just so much to do in the garden and the meadow...
especially now that the potager has reached maximum size.
All this means that we are just too exhausted, by the evening, to concentrate on little more than holding knife and fork for eating... and more drastic... holding a glass straight!

But what we have had over the past few days has got fingertips to keyboard at last...


I was on my way out into the meadow on Wednesday morning to rake up some fresh cut grass for the "maggot"....
and as I drew near the  five old "trognes"....
the big old pollarded willows...
I heard thumping noises.

Hard thumping!!

Now, Richard's son Eric has been having great troubles with their brand new irrigation system since needing to use it in earnest...
his wife told me it had broken down seven times on the first day!!
So, I thought that there was another problem and he was using the age old remedy...
whacking it hard with a length of wood!!!

But, as I walked forward more, the thumping was no longer in line with the pump house....
it was more and more to my left and slightly below me...
energetic woodpecker or vole with a Kango?
I crept forward very...verry.... verrry..... verrrry slowly....
and saw a large woodpecker thumping its white bill against the rotten wood of the nearest old willow...
hold on... white bill?
Black Woodpecker!!!!
And, sure enough "breeep"... and it flew up onto one of the trunks in the sky...
and sat there, looking at me...
and what did I have to photograph this wonderful bird with...
a wooden rake!!
Then, casually, it flew over the longère... "breeep-breeep... breeep-breeep... breeep-breeep"...

Well, that was very nice... thought I.... and carried on to do the raking I was meant to be doing.
I mentioned it to Pauline when I got back so that it could be recorded on Faune Touraine.
"I've been hearing them all week" says she...
"Oh?" was my response!
Pauline is way better at identifying birds by sound than me... a severe short-sightedness from an early age made her a "Bird-Listener"....
rather than a birdwatcher...
and she hasn't abused her ears with rock music through headphones either!!
Since a cateract operation corrected that, she's been able to watch them more clearly too!
But, I've lost my microscope that talked!

A slight pause in the tale, here...


Posted by Tim