Mad March Hare pays a visit.... in April!

Well, what a surprise just now.... a mad March hare in April.... at the backdoor [almost]....

I was just about to take some compostables outside when I spotted a hare lolloping towards me, out in the potager... it then turned down towards the big rhubarb and out of my site.
We do get hares from time to time... usually in the field next door or out in our watermeadow.
But always too fleeting, or too fast...

"Compost be damned!" I thought, as I grab camera and carefully open latch on back door...
and lo, the lievre comes lolloping back round the corner of the wall.... and towards me... WTH!
So I start taking photos as it comes right up to the grassy side of the Woodchipio®, pausing only to taste the grass... it was a wet hare... needed a blowdry?
It would have come via the roadside fence... so had probably been in the Winter wheat or barley on the other side of the road... 

Until this morning, I hadn't really appreciated just how big they really are...
the normal view being, always, from a distance... with little to give scale!
It was as large, possibly larger than Baron our small black panther....
as long in the body, the head was half as big again as Baron's...
and the hoooooge ears, amazing....
it may not have weighed Baron's eight kilos, but I think it was possibly not far off!

So, please... share in my "wet hare" moment....
I rather like the punkish topknot!

This was the closest it came... and I couldn't fit it in the frame!

This, however, was what I thought would be my closest view... the inspection hatches for the fosse filter bed!
Was I about to be surprised... it suddenly turned towards me just as I had zoomed out to get a better shot...
so, I got this...

Terrible picture.... ears all cut off, but still somewhat magical to me!

After having a nibble of the grass along the edge of the Woodchipio®, it turned and lolloped away towards the potager... much the way it had come... but, as it went... it did the Mad March Hare routine....

I had zoomed back out enough... but it decided to keep exploring..
so off it went!

This is a more normal "hare shot"... going away!!
As it lolloped it showed a clean pair of heels... but muddy feet!

Then... it stopped, sat on its haunches and did a bit of "shadow boxing"....

Followed by getting really "wild" with its opponent...
standing on tiptoe... and really throwing those punches!!

And then away it went.... much in the opposite direction to which I saw it arrive...

Although it may look to be in the classic "hare at speed" pose...
it is, still, just lolloping along...

.... and, after this last shot, it stayed around for about five more minutes.... having a nibble here, a nibble there... not, seemingly, worried by being near habitation!
So, an Easter Monday Mad April Hare came to visit.......

It was an increasingly long, hot Summer!!

Well..
it is November now... and we haven't posted for four and a half months....
it is difficult to really know where to begin...
so, being 'Bwitsh', I will start with a cuppa and mention the weather....
it had been an increasingly long, hot Summer...
everything is parched...
we had a record temperature of 41.6 Centigrade on the 24th August...
and any rain has been totally negligible.... and at the wrong time of day....
which meant that it evaporated off before it could do any good.
And that lack of rain continued into the middle of October...
which then turned colder... but not necessarily wetter...
the end of October up to last weekend we had 40mm in total....
we can't be more specific than that...
as something seems to have glued up the rocker in the raingauge...
hmmph! Spiders.... or a mason bee....?
The total above is from the "analogue" gauge... the ground just swallowed it....
two days after the last rainfall and veggies pulled out of the ground were dry!
We haven't yet been round the pré, but out there.... in mid-October....
there were cracks in the soil that were around 30mm wide and 20cm deep...
the millstream hasn't changed height, nor has it gone cloudy.

The Norway Maples by the Aigronne a few days ago....

....and the potager as day breaks at the beginning of October!

So... onto the wildlife....
The Barn Owls raised at least one owlet... without a camera inside the box, it is impossible to know with certainty...
the eggs hatch at intervals...and they fledge the same.
We are basing the count on the "one" we have records of on video...
our only hesitation being that "the one fledgling" stayed at the nestbox for rather a long time!!

This is the only picture that shows more than two owls at the same time!
Our presumption is that the fledgling is the middle one....

All the usual suspects were around... Swallows, Black Redstarts, Wrens, Tits [asst'd.], Stonechats, Warblers, Woodpeckers, Moorhens, etcetera...
the Swallows appear to have managed three broods this short Summer... as have the Wrens...
a pair of Great Tits didn't read the nestbox guide... and used a deep, open-fronted box destined for other species.

Look, would you please read the  manual!!

With the felling of the poplar plantation that bordered our verger, we lost the close proximity of the Golden Oriole... we heard them regularly, but distant.
However, our Turtle Doves made it back across the Mediterranean!!

Welcome back!

Despite the soggy... nay, sodden, Winter and Spring this year, the Aigronne and the millstream have become sparklin'ly clear and the weed has managed to grow properly.
We've been graced by bountiful numbers of dragons and damsels...

A female Western Spectre dragonfly... possibly our dullest insect raptor...

and a brighter, female Migrant Hawker [I think....?]

And one of our Beautiful Damselflies

and, having been loaned Martin's marvellous moth trap last year, we invested in a new, portable one ourselves... more from that in a later post...
but we've run it four times at approximately monthly intervals and found fascinating and beautiful moths and other insects....
the most numerous being the caddisflies... the larvae of which will be food for the aquatic predators...
setting up close to the millstream has also snared water boatmen, "may"flies, midges of all types and aquatic beetles.
You will have to wait for the wondrous moths... but here is a very small sample of "the other insects"...

Eight, on the outside identical, ground beetles*, two other small beetles and a micro-moth....

.... a tiny leafhopper.... 4 or 5 millimetres long....

....and one of the ichneumons... possibly an Ophion species*....
along with a small caddis fly and a little rove beetle!!
These are all interesting bycatch from the moth trap and shows the diversity of insect types.
* These have been identified... see Susan's comment.

On the mammal front we've been visited by martens, deer, stoats and hedgehogs....
the "pieges photographiques" showing us all but the Stoat, which has now been seen twice from the bedroom window....
just on the other side of the bridge. Both times, viewed going the same way... seems to indicate a waterside patrol...
probably after our Watervoles and the Moorhen chicks.
Baron has caught some Yellow-necked mice....according to Faune Touraine they don't exist here...
or didn't until we supplied photographic evidence!!

This is a marten... probably a Fouine or Beech Marten...
investigating a hole carved by a woodpecker...
and, no, it isn't this light at 3.46am at the beginning of September...
I have "inverted" the picture to make it easier on the eye!

The pré is now reasonably wooded in the intended places... but with more work to do yet...
however, the corridors for the wildlife are established...
though sadly, locally, many more are being lost as local farmers enlarge their fields...
or remove them to allow ploughing closer to the edge.
So... that is the state of Pré at the moment...

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!!