New Sightings

Recently our daughter, partner and 2 children spent 10 days with us and one of our trips was to the Pont du Gard. We've been there many times and it never disappoints. This time we discovered the children's museum, which both Timmy, 10 years and Amélie, nearly 4 years old, both loved!

On the way home we realised that a Lilac Breasted Roller was flying some 20 yards away from our car and on a parallel course.

Gorgeous birds, both in flight and still, with plumage from lilac to an irridescent pale blue. Although we'd seen them quite frequently in Zambia & Kenya, we'd never before seen one in our part of France.

Seeing it brought back memories. About 2001 I was running courses with a colleague just outside Denver, Colarado. We were there for 2 weeks, so at the weekend hired a car to go up into the mountains. We visited an abandoned silver mine, forgotten the name, & in their art gallery came across a beautifiul picture of this Roller, taken by an American photographer in Kenya. We had it framed & it now hangs on our bedroom wall here in Mollans!

The second sighting was of a far less dramatic bird and required some investigation & luck over a week or so.

We first sighted a small brown bird with the posture and large eye reminiscent of a Robin. Bit of white in the wings, pale breast, nearly white at the throat; too slim to be a female chaffinch. We finally decided it was a female Pied Flycatcher. Today she sat on a branch near the birdfeeders long enough to get a positive identification. No sign of her more striking balck & white partner, but perhaps they have split up by now in the year?

Blue & Great Tits still active, we hear & se the Nuthatch frequently, and many of Collered Doves.