A Time of Sadness

Nothing of any great note happened during July and August on the bird table. Birds continue to arrive and feed on the sunflower seeds, mostly great tits and blue tits as well as a scruffy pair of goldfinches and a very smart pair of nuthatches. Also most of the usual suspects; robins, blackbirds, blackcaps in the garden and herons, buzzards, swallows & house martins in the air.

Why sadness? Three things that happened over the last couple of days. The French, like us, believe that troubles come in threes with the expression "Il n'y a jamais deux sans trois"

Arriving home we found a baby blackcap in front of the glass in the french window, with mother anxiously fluttering around. It was quite dead and had presumably flown into the glass and broken its neck. Mother blackcap stayed around for 15 minutes searching for baby but then gave up.

Birds flying into window glass seems to happen frequently, often, though not always, with fatal results!

The second sadness was the realisation that the bee eaters had departed for warmer climes. Both Jo & I miss their chattering and brilliant colours as they pass overhead in the morning and back in the other direction in the evening.

Lastly, we noticed today the swallows flying steadily but determinedly to the West, mostly single birds. One holiday spent on the canal du Midi in September, we spent our last day on the beach, not far from Beziers. There was a steady stream of swallows flying along the beach from East to West.

I would guess that the swallows we see passing in front of our house are following the river Ouvèze, then the Rhône as far as the Mediterranean where they will follow the coast to Spain, Gibraltar and Africa. What a journey, and how do those birds making their first journey manage?

We've just finished making kilos of plum jam and chutney. We helped a local farmer with his plum harvest in return for 80kilos for us. Five of us went plum picking and in less than three hours we had picked over 500 kilos!

A good deal for us and for him.

Northamptonshire v Drôme Provençal

We've just returned from two weeks in England visiting Jo's mother, who has recently left hospital & now lives in a retirement home.

Kathleen, Jo's mother, is 95 years old and says she is too young to be in such a place. It is easy to empathise; it must seem to her that she has been shuffled off to somewhere she didn't choose to spend her last days. However, in reality she must now have 24 hour care, as she cannot move easily by herself, is registered blind and also deaf. Twenty-four care in your own house is incredibly expensive, more than we or Jo's brother Nick could afford, so there is really only one choice!

While we were there we hung many of her own pictures in her room, collected her own armchair and bought her a powered wheelchair.

All the caring staff seem to be very caring, so hopefully Kath will soon begin to appreciate her accommodation more

We stayed with my daughter & partner who live in the South Northants countryside. It was interesting to compare the bird life there with that back home in France.

We immediately noticed the large numbers of wood pigeon in England. In France we have small wild pigeons and doves, but I've not seen the really big ones, larger than partridge. I couldn't help thinking how well they would go in the pot!

Here in France we see the occasional shy blackbird, while in England there were large numbers as well as many thrushes. It was a thrush that sang to us from a tall tree each evening as the sun went down and also led the dawn chorus, at the disgustingly early hour of 3.30!

Many swallows and house martins in England, but as I've mentioned earlier, we saw no swifts, whereas here they always seem to be screaming their way through the village.

A big change in the last 20 years or so is the presence of birds of prey in the English countryside. Certainly where we were, we saw the occasional red kite whilst buzzards were almost commonplace!

One lunchtime we ate with our son near a large lake in Milton Keynes, where there were over 100 Canada geese on the water. We noticed that at one moment they would all be facing one direction and and an instant later, all of them together were facing a different direction; another mystery of nature.

Precision flying

The Swifts have arrived here in Mollans. As a boy growing up in south London in the fifties, I can clearly remember the Swifts (un martinet) careering around the house, screaming as they went. Now they seem much rarer in Britain. Here they are very plentiful; there is something very French sitting outside a café as the sun sets and the Swifts career about, yelling out loud!

Although not likely to be seen on a bird table, the warm nights have stimulated the midwife toad to commence calling. Called the midwife toad as after the female has laid her eggs, the male fertilises them and then carries them around his lower back until they are ready to hatch, when he deposits them in or near water.
Also called the bell toad, which is how one knows he is about, for he makes a beautiful ringing call which carries through the night. It's worth finding its call on the web; for a little toad it's a wonderful sound.

The nights are increasingly noisy, for as well as the bell toad the nightingales are singing away for most of the night. For me it's a wonderful sound, but you meet people who complain that it keeps them awake!

Recently in the garden I have seen examples of the level of control that birds have over flight. Some years ago, I decided to put chain-link fencing right round our garden, which with help from many friends we did (some 330 metres!). Recently, on two occasions whilst walking through the garden, I have startled a bird which made off at high speed towards the fence and at the very last minute folded its wings and went through the space in the chain-link, with very little space to spare, continuing to fly at the other side.

On neither occasion could I make out what the bird was, other than a sbj (small brown job), perhaps a robin? I measured the hole in the chain-link and it measures 5.5 centimetres square.

If I can find out what bird it is, I'll let you know, but it's a very clever piece of flying.

Adaptability & Exotica

On Friday I took Jo to Nîmes airport, as her mother should be moving from Northampton hospital into a retirement home soon (a proposed five days stay in hospital has now been 34 days!).

The French have a different approach to signposting airports. In the UK, we sign to "London Heathrow" or "Edinburgh Turnhouse". Here, the signposts just show the name of the airport which is invariably that of the nearest, often very small, village. To get to Marseille airport you must follow the signs to Marignane and to get to Nîmes-Arles-Camargue airport, its official name, you must follow the signs to Garons!

Nîmes airport is delightfully small, with a two story car park, one story underground and a second story above at ground level. To get to the top level you drive through the lower bit; you soon realise that the air is full of swallows! Every year since we've been using this airport, the swallows nest in the lower level car park in large numbers. To me it seems quite astounding; the headroom is not great between the nests and the cars, the car park is lit and muzak blasts out from many loudspeakers, yet for Mr.& Mrs. Swallow this is obviously a des. res. Perhaps they turn out the lights and music during the night?

Last week the first of the birds normally seen here and only rarely in Britain arrived, the European Bee-eaters are here. Flocks fly over our house, in one direction in the morning and back again in the evening. One evening last year about 40 landed in the trees at the end of our garden, allowing us to really appreciate their colourful plumage. (picture top left) Like most birds, when seen from below they tend to appear black, though the bee-eater has, I think, a unique wing shape as an aid to identification; a bit like a WW2 Spitfire with pointed ends!(small picture top centre)

The bee-eater is about the size of a starling and its main diet is bees, wasps & hornets. Perhaps its favourite food is different in France, as its called here a "Guepier" or wasp eater.

The other arrival for the summer is the Golden Oriole. Despite its bright yellow colour and size of a jackdaw, its quite difficult to spot as it hides in the tops of trees (picture top right). But you know it's around by the lovely burbling song, quite loud but both melodic and exotic. I haven't mastered the skill of adding sound to my blog, but a quick visit to an appropriate web site will demonstrate what I mean.

Red Kites

Our garden ends in a sheer cliff over the River Ouvèze, some 12 meters below. The Ouvèze is unusually high, as we had some 5 days of rain, hailstones, thunder & lightning, only relenting 2 days ago.

The far bank is much lower, so we have a splendid vantage point to watch Red Kites nesting in the tops of the tall trees opposite.

It's all a bit confusing, as at times there are 4 or 5 kites swooping around, but there seems to be a nucleus of 3! With their forked tails acting as a very flexible rudder, they have an easy mastery of the air, whether performing just over the trees, or as this afternoon, the second of two lovely sunny days, up so high as to be difficult to see.

Red Kites were common birds in Kenya, still scavenging around Nairobi in large flocks as they did, by all accounts, around London in the time of Elizabeth 1st. We lived on the outskirts of Nairobi and a game we would often play was to throw small pieces of meat in the air and in no time there would be 20 or more kites swooping down. Our children both went to school in Nairobi, where kites would dive and steal food from the children's hands if they were careless.

We were delighted to find that when we eventually returned to the UK in 1996, Red Kites had been re-introduced. Groups of over 12 could be seen on the Chiltern ridge when using the M40 and we've seen them further north-east in south Northamptonshire.

It's reassuring to know that there is now a large breeding population in Britain, as numbers have fallen steeply in France & Germany.

A fortnight of problems

Phew! I suspect that we all have periods when at some time during the day we ask ourselves why on earth we had bothered to get up in the morning? With some exceptions, this seems to have gone on for a fortnight!

First the birds; no problems there. About two weeks ago I saw the first party of house martins hawking above the river. Many nest in Mollans, usually in the narrow streets so that they are out of the direct sun for most of the day. To the French they are the "Hirondelle de fenêtre" to distinguish them from the swallow, which are "Hirondelle rustique or hirondelle de cheminée".

We still have two pairs of hawfinch coming to the bird table; the male's beak is now a striking blue. Also a pair of blackcap have arrived, very striking when together, he with his black and her with her brown cap.

An old friend from Nigeria, Pat Downes, was staying and we went to the Pont du Gard near Nîmes. We've both been times before, but never tire of the bridge itself and the fascinating museum. The swallows had arrived and were swooping around & through the arches of the bridge.

As to the problems?

Jo's mother was taken to hospital so Jo is in the UK, our dog was ill, caused by processionary moth caterpillars, the spring broke in the car luggage cover, our satellite television receiver doesn't, my electric razor has stopped, Pat & my attempts to fix the automatic gate opening failed, it took 4 days to dig out the concrete to repair the pool filler and 2 days after opening the pool for the summer, the circulation pump stopped - oh, the heron has revisited the pond to take the few remaining gold fish!

Ah well, Jo's mother is better so Jo is coming back on the 14th bringing a new electric razor, the dog is better, the pool pump has been repaired, we can open the gates by hand, I've refurbished the scarecrow to keep the heron off, the sun still mostly shines, the wine is great and the food tasty.

Poles and Eagles

We had coffee last week with an English couple we know, who live in the hills above Mollans in a house with clear views over the garrigue to Mont Ventoux, splendid this year with a thick covering of snow. It may come as a surprise to know that there is skiing 50 kilometers or so from Avignon, but Mont Ventoux is 6,200 feet high!

This year the last stage of the the famous cycle race, le Tour de France, finishes at the summit of the mountain, where that great English cyclist Tommy Simpson died during the 1967 race.

Anyway, we were there to look at the work that two Polish artisan brothers had been carrying out on the exterior of our friends' house, with a view to getting the them to visit us and quote for some work we needed doing. This was duly accomplished as the work was good and reasonably priced. We await their quote!

Having finished this ,we were drinking our coffee and admiring the view, when a very large raptor flew over us, no more than 30 feet from the ground!

Identifying birds in flight is notoriously difficult and can, at times, appear to be leading to divorce, but we were pretty certain that it was a golden eagle; the sheer size of the wings held relatively straight, the dark underbody, the lighter chestnut on top and the way it was quartering the ground at a relatively low level. The short-toed eagle which we see frequently, by comparison, glides with wings slightly bent, is lighter beneath and hovers, like a giant kestrel!

The golden eagle really was a magnificent sight. It reminded us of when our children were younger and we always passed our summer holidays on the west coast of Scotland at Sanna Bay, with our friends Hazel & David and their three children. One day David, his son Robert and I climbed Ben Laga. The guide book said that golden eagles could be seen, but we took that with a large pinch of salt!

However, when resting on the summit, we heard the screaming of gulls coming from the south over loch Sunart, and approaching us was indeed a golden eagle, mobbed by angry gulls. The beauty of the sighting was that being above the eagle, we were looking down on it and could see so clearly the golden feathers at the back of the neck that gave it its name, a view I had never seen before or since.

A Company of Hawfinches

On the old cherry tree we hang many birdfeeders the year round. The staple food is sunflower seeds with peanuts (difficult to obtain here in France) and fatballs.

They attract many different birds - all the tits: blue, great, coal and long-tailed; nuthatches, chaffinch and greenfinch and treecreepers. Many of the sunflower seeds fall to the ground, where they attract, in the winter, siskins and serins, bramblings and goldfinches; sometimes there are 75 to 100 birds foraging on the ground.

Early this year we were delighted to see first one then two pairs of hawfinches as regular visitors to both the feeders and the ground beneath. Very well turned-out birds; to us, they give the impression of having just left the hairdressers, with not a stray wisp or feather out of place. Both pairs are frequently seen on the tops of the high oaks in the garden, their size (for a finch) and enormous beaks help identify them.

This morning, Jo, my wife, called out to look under the bird feeders, where there were at least 20 hawfinches eating the sunflower seeds!

All the information we could find suggests that hawfinches are shy and difficult to see; one of the websites did suggest that as well as birds that stay in one locality, other hawfinches migrate south from north and east europe in winter and back again in spring.

We assume our company of hawfinches was a party moving back to north and east Europe.