Egyptian goose - June 23 and 24th

I have got our of order by not managing to put in my blog from France - and need to check the date of this one but in the weekbeginning 22nd June, saw thee egyptian geese by Willen on my cycle in - and they were still there the next day. After that they left. I had to look them up but they are very distinctive and identifiable with the pretty brown ring round the eye

There has also been a barnacle goose with the canada and greylag geese at Willen for a little while

Red kite day 5th July

Very exciting morning - saw a red kite above our garden. Checked the BTO site and there are none recorded for Milton Keynes - though given how near they have been coming did expect to see one sooner or later!

Lot: 17-19 June

Wednesday 17th June

It has been a very hot day. We did a different walk around the gorge of Alzou today. Again the views of the gorge were wonderful and today we saw the ravens and ac ouple of kites. Then we walked up through woodland onto the plateau.. Apparently the plateau is carboniferous limestone – hence the amazing flowers. There are wild sweet peas, orchids, a very pretty convulvulus, and many flowers I recognise or half recognise but don’t know the names.

There is a pretty black white and brown one which is very common and which we also saw in the alps a few years ago We heard and saw stonechats up on the common before returning to the gorge. Now it is 9.30 and the sun has set but it is still warm and a cuckoo is calling. We have also seen jays freaquently and often closely as we have walked to and from the gite.

Thursday 18th June (or 19th? losing track)

An unsuccessful walk today from the book – mainly on roads. Little wildelife to be seen, except as we sat by the Oydisse (spelling?) I saw a kingfisher fly by. In the evening we walked into R for a meal and walked back the long way reaching the gite about 10.25. when it was just about dark. The sounds on the way were wonderful – calls we couldn’t identify – possibly a frog (but not the marsh frogs); some bats were seen; some very disturbed hoopoes. Jim heard an owl later though I didn’t. What looked like a kestrel flew past me quite close and very fast. Friday 19th June Again I watched the small bird that I had thought might be a siskin. This time I checked on the I-phone again and saw it couldn’t be there was no black bib/head and it had a short stubby beak and matched the serin – which I had never even heard of.

Week in the Lot region continued 14th-15th June

Sunday 14th June 1.30

Hoopoes and other birds This is a very rich place for wildlife. I think the jays we glimpses last evening may have been hoopoes. Certainly there are hoopoes here – one perched on the wall not far away as I was eating my breakfast . The heat vanished overnight and it was a cool morning – fleeces needed. We decided around 10am to walk into Rocamadour – which, like Hospitale is very touristy as it is a pilgrimage site and the second most visited site in France, apparently. Nevertheless it is impressive with its mediaeval buildings clinging to the site of the gorge which is wooded and rocky and peppered with caves and holes so that the whole site is alive with swifts swallows and martins. Some of the swifts may be different to ours at home. Walking up the little lane from the lower part of the village we watched what I’m almost sure were spotted flycatchers. Sat on a branch with speckled chests – the birds (there were a pair) flew out to catch moths and butterflies with great ease and expertise, and then flew back with tails bobbing up and down. They had very thin beaks. Then we saw a redstart – again a thin beak, very handsome dark slatey face and eyes, ligheter patch under the tail and noticeable red patch in flying. He flew on and off the ground ahead of us. In the tree, a blackcap? Pale underneath – larger than a sparrow. Perched on top of a branch – and seemed to have a black head but hard to say given our view. The song sounded very like “do-it”. We saw another kite walking back to the house. I had to think about what kinds of kite there are other than our lovely red one (no bird books with me – weight on the train!) and seem to remember seeing kites in India years ago which I think were black and also in Northern Spain. Near home we heard a purring/whirring call – no idea what it was but would recognise it if I heard it again. Then on our evening walk we saw a very large black beetle with antennae twice the size of its body that flew onto the trunk of a tree.

Monday 15th June

There was a thunderstorm today, though little thunder – mainly torrential rain so we stayed at the gite. A hoopoe spent a long time feeding on the lawn and we could see the crest fan out – lovely. There was also a treecreeper, goldfinches and more recently in the heavy rain a great spotted woodpeckers. Around the garden there are blackbirds, chaffinches, great and blue tits and starlings and at least one redstart. I also saw a grey wagtail that did not look like our pied one? Pied with a bib, but mainly grey and with barred wings and light grey underneath. Then on the telegraph wire what I’m fairly sure was a pied fly catcher – seen from the back; mainly black but with a white patch. A very pretty redstart has been back – an amazing bird 0 this one has a very red chest – not just under the tail. Treecreeper; pied flycatcher; goldfinches Tuesday 16th June We walked in the Azou gorge today – walking from the gite towards the roald and along some lovely lanes till we reached a path down to the gorge with wonderfjul views. Cuckoos called constantly as we walked the lanes but weren’t present in the gorge. From the gorge we heard (but didn’t see) ravens and heard what I’m pretty sure were peregrine calls coming from the top of the gorge cliffs – an ideal peregrine nesting spot but though we both scanned the cliffs we could not see them. But in a different part of the gorge we did see a peregrine chasing a buzzard. I’m finding it difficult to sort out my martins and swifts here! I think there are sand martins in addition to the house martins are possibly other kinds of swifts too. The martins are brown rather than the dark blue-ey black of our own house martins but as they are always on the wing, hard to see properly. We had lunch sat on a bridge to a ruined mill over the boulders of a dried up river and watched a lizard moving around. It never caught anything substantial, but kept eating small things. Back at the gite I have just seen (6.40) a small yellowy-green striated bird sit on the hawthorn in the garden. It is definitely not a yellow hammer – perhaps a siskin? I need to look it up. The head is not as yellow as a y h but otherwise it is similarish – with a yellowy pale breast, striated and a si-si-si call. My quick look on the RSPB site on J’s I-phone suggested it might be a siskin? But not sure as yet. Cuckoos are still calling again at 9.30.

Week in France in Lot region 13th June - peregrine and frogs

I kept a diary to put in my blog when I came home but of course didn't do it straight away - so here it is. This also means that other entries are now delayed but will try to catch up...

Saturday 13th June: Peregrine in Limoge and the landscape near Rocamadour

I am sitting outside our gate at 9.45. It is still quite light though starting to get dark now the sun has set. It’s been very hot – 100 degrees was predicted – not sure if it reached that but may well have done. We stayed at Limoge last night, having taken the train there. The day got off to a great start. I left our hotel for a short walk around 7.50 this morning and headed for the station which has a tall tower (cupola? I guess). The swifts were circling nearby so I looked through the binoculars to see if I could see where they are nesting and spotted a young peregrine on the ledge. It looked a bit scruffy and as I watched walked round the ledge (very carefully) so I cou ld see its yellow feet. There were no more birds, so I think it was the last from the nest. The photo shows the tower - but not the bird as on that day the camera was not working :-(

I, and then Jim too, watched it on and off till about 11.15 by which point we had sorted out our hire car and were moving luggage. I wondered whether parents would come to feed it, but remember the warden telling us when we went to see the sea-eagles in Mull that when the chicks are ready to fly the parents stop feeding them – to urge them out. I wonder if it is the same thing here?
I looked often but did not see any adults return – but did get wonderful close views by standing on the crossing near the station. But the camera was not working! (It turned out the batteries needed changing…..). Alas, when we looked at around 11.45 after half an hour’s gap, the bird had gone. Odd to think that one moment it was there, then no sign at all! No bird hanging around nearby – or flying nearby. So we were really lucky to see it.

After an early lunch we drove down to the house we’ve rented near Rocamadour - in the Lot region. On the way we saw a dark kite fly over as we drove. Although it was brown rather than black these are apparently black kites.

I have never been before but after a few hours can see why it is a popular place with the British. We’re staying in a house near a hotel – outside the village on the side of a valley which is teeming with birdsong and crickets singing. Just at the bottom of the valley is a small pond, surrounded by marsh and full of frogs calling – which I’m pretty sure are marsh frogs; of which there is now a small colony in Romney marshes in the UK. These are large frogs – up to 7 inches or so and not terribly attractive – and their colonisation of part of the UK is a it worrying as they are quite aggressive – out compete our European frog, I think, where they move in. Their calls are lovely though – and the first time I heard them I thought they were birds.

We walked up the lane around 8.45 and saw several jays and heard a couple of cuckoos calling. At the to of the rise on the other side of the small valley, the trees get quite dense and are mainly oak (scrub oak?) but interspersed with rocky clearings with orchids, wild thyme and sheep. Now at 10pm there is still some light and I just heard the cuckoo again. Most of the birds are silent now but a few birds are calling, though the sounds are mainly crickets (or similar) and the frogs.

I’m wondering whether there might be owls here. There is a new sound I can’t identify, a kind of ooo – eee with the eee higher. And it seems to me the kind of landscape where there could be nightjars.