Birds are one of many nice joys of a gardener, and the wild variations in dimension, shade and comportment of various species attest to the limitless creativity of nature. Whereas I benefit from the small, metropolis birds that go to my backyard in San Francisco, my true delight comes from birdwatching in France.
Attending to Know the Birds in France
One of many first issues I constructed after we moved to a small stone home within the Pyrenees in French Basque Nation was a hen feeding station. I stacked up a number of massive picket spools – used for electrical wire – and grounded them with a stake by the central holes into the bottom beneath.
This proved an limitless supply of pleasure and leisure, notably within the springtime. Mum or dad birds would park their younger on the assorted ranges of the feeding station and fly off to seek out worms or get water. Though at first we acknowledged solely the robins, in time we got here to know and love many different species. Listed below are a number of of my private favorites.
European Robin
It was straightforward sufficient to acknowledge a French robin, although it appears to be like very completely different from its American counterpart. French robins are known as “rouge gorges”, which means purple throats. They usually, like American robins, have that giveaway purple breast. However in any other case, robins in France are small and delicate, maybe half the scale of American robins. They stayed all yr lengthy, making them acquainted members of our little group.
My favourite robin story concerned a dramatic rescue: saving two child birds from a snake. My younger daughter got here operating into the home in tears one afternoon telling me {that a} snake was about to eat two child robins.
I rushed exterior to see the robin’s nest, midway up the rocky rise beside the home. Two fuzzy birds peeked out fearfully. The nest was inaccessible to a crawling snake, however a couleuvre snake had noticed them, climbed right into a tree, and was starting a descent to the nest on a drooping department. Each guardian birds had been circling the department, attempting to dissuade the snake by chirping and fluttering bravely, with out success.
I used to be afraid of snakes, and this one was a number of ft lengthy. However I knew I needed to do one thing. I received a big bucket with a lid and positioned it on the bottom beneath the snake’s department, then reduce off the department, sending it and the snake into the bucket. This sounds lots smoother an operation than it was, however, pumped stuffed with adrenaline, I managed to clap the lid on the bucket. We carried the bucket up the mountain and launched it far-off.
French Merle
The blackbird in France is of the species Turdus merula. It’s known as the merle and it might be my favourite backyard customer. Once I get up within the morning in spring, summer time and fall, my “alarm” is the track of the merles from the bushes round the home.
These birds are both shiny black or uninteresting black. Grownup males have shiny black feathers with a vibrant yellow invoice and eyering. The females and younger birds are a duller, darkish brown. They go to the property to feed on the holly berries and their stunning track is a real delight to listen to. Whereas they don’t often settle for the sunflower seeds or suet from my feeder, they do drink from the water dish after they assume I’m not watching.
I like the merles for his or her track, their fierce independence, and the flash of shiny black as they fly by. We’re neighbors on the mountain however not buddies, though typically child merles are left on the hen feeding station, massive, fuzzy and hungry, because the dad and mom go off to seek out meals..
