Thursday 13 September 2018

Aujourd'hui c'est les vacances

 
We took our leave of English shores in the middle of the sunniest summer since the scorching mid-seventies.  We spent a glorious fortnight in Brittany, Vendee and a couple of days in Paris.  Our house in Vendee was adjacent and above a small river so the veranda was in the mid canopy of the trees.  Firecrest, Short-toed Treecreeper held territory and the tropical fluting song of Golden Oriole woke us each morning.  An unexpected highlight was a visit by a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker to our veranda tree and a Honey Buzzard drifted over one morning harried by a Hobby.  We ran a moth trap on several nights which was less successful than expected but the girls continue to enjoy going through the catch when there are big and bright beasties to be found.
 
 
 
 
 
Further afield every beach had a Med Gull or ten in attendance and a couple of Montagu's Harriers were seen from the car but there was never anywhere suitable to stop and enjoy them.  Some Spoonbills, White Storks, Cattle Egrets and Black-winged Stilts pottered around the wetlands and Serins and Fan-tailed Warblers - Zitting Cisticolas in new money, added to the terroir.  In Paris our room high in the eves of the hotel afforded views to the Sacre Coeur and also the favoured TV aerial song post for a Black Redstart to rattle and crackle its song.
 
 


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