What this way has passed?

I mowed the meadow last week....
yes, it is only January...
and the grass hasn't grown very much....
but I needed to do it......
mainly to demolish the molehills...
and destroy tussocks.

I need to get out there with equipment in February...
and towing everything in the trailer, behind the mower, is a lot easier...
than trudging back and forth and wasting valuable time.
So obstacles must go!!

As I was passing close to the bief [millstream] I saw some tracks...
lots of tracks....
large, cloven tracks. Looks like a deer to me...
certainly not wild boar...
no rear spike holes...
and no horribly turned over soil!

Not very clear, but deep...
heavy animal or moving rapidly?

Having mowed, I went out again with camera and the trusty Field Studies Council "Animal Tracks and Signs" leaflet...

Too small for Red...
no Sheep about...
and no Wild Boar rear spikes!

Closest to Sika deer...
and the hole... below right...
is in the wrong position for a Wild Boar

Yes, deer was the closest match....
but they fell 'twixt Roe Deer and Red Deer...
matching the closest, Fallow or Sika....
now, the nearest of either of them is well to the north in the Sologne.
And that was as far as this post got until today!!

This morning, glancing out  of the window...
as we often do... might miss something...
we saw seven Red Deer hinds [Cervus elaphus] Cerf élaphe biches, of differing sizes#....
trotting towards the meadow from the hill to the North.
They crossed the Aigronne by our Norway Maples, without stopping....
they were out in the open in broad daylight...
and continued across the pré in the direction of the bief...
on the line they were following, they would have crossed that...
at the point I saw the tracks above....
that is where we couldn't follow... no windows that way...
and at the speed they were trotting, no time to get out of the house.
There was no time, either, for Pauline to get her camera operational and take a pic!
And it was on the windowsill........
They were visible for about forty seconds...

They had probably been disturbed from their lay-up or lair by a stray dog....
or someone getting too close...
and decided to head for the "safety" of the woods on the other side of the valley.
Nice to see tho'... So, problem solved...
Red Deer!

[# - The size varies quite considerably depending on the food supply...
also the bloodstock availability...
a good example of this is the decision to limit the size of the herd in Grizedale Forest...
in the Lake District...
to 350 head. The weakest stag when I last saw the Deer Museum there...
was a fourteen point Royal with a six-foot span.
Compare that with the poorly fed, uncontrolled herds in Strath Halladale...
near the RSPB Forsinard reserve in the Flow Country...
[Caithness, Scotland]... smaller, weaker beasts altogether!!]

A Black Day at the forge!!

In the front garden we HAD two Bee Orchids [Ophrys apifera] Orchis abeille...
I use the word "had" because someone didn't talk to his workmen...
and they, also, did not talk to us before they acted.

We have the roofers in to do the longère...
they use a huge JCB "Long-in-the-Arm" to do the heavy work...
some of the tiles are now off the roof and in a crate....
and they needed to put the crate somewhere to stock it.
Without asking us, they drove the damn machine along in front of the barn and hangar...
and have crushed out of existence the two Bee Orchids...
you cannot even see the fluorescent markers that I was using!!!

So, here is a final picture of one of our two Bee Orchids!

RIP...
little clown!

Nous sommes tous Charlie

This is the picture of the week from the LPO:

Illustration : Cécile Rousse / LPO

Nous sommes tous Charlie

L’attentat du 7 janvier plonge la LPO et toute la communauté des naturalistes dans une détresse insondable.

Nous sommes tout à la fois effondrés et en colère. Effondrés face au vide qui se présente devant nous. En colère contre l'obscurantisme.

Le temps est au deuil. Oui nous vous pleurons. Mais nous continuerons de parler de vous au présent.

Allain Bougrain Dubourg
Président de la LPO

                             

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The wise thrush

... as Robert Browning called the song thrush (turdus philomelos, grive musicienne) in "Home Thoughts from Abroad":

There's the wise thrush:
He sings each song twice over
Lest you think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture.

I make no apologies for re-posting Tim's stunning portrait.

We have included the song thrush in a previous post here.

At this time of year the thrushes don't do a lot of singing, but they do fill themselves with food. This one was working a patch of rough meadow for grass snails.

Curses! I'm spotted!

When the weather is frosty, the snails hide in the thick vegetation and seal themselves up

Searching the bramble patch

I watched him or her pick out eight snails in about fifteen minutes, and take them to a spot out of sight behind a bramble bush.  When I went to refill the bird feeders in the meadow, this is what I found.

Thrush anvil

What looks like a slightly paler patch of earth is a rough lump of stone projecting slightly from the muddy soil. (The meadow is mostly alluvium, but with some quite substantial rocks in, and this is also the site of the former mill). It is surrounded by a scatter of broken grass snail shells. Clearly the thrush is using it as an anvil. It stands beside or on the anvil holding the snail shell in its beak and wellies it against the rock until it breaks. Then the thrush eats the goodies inside.

The French name, "Musician thrush" is a charming description of one of my favourite singers..