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.
