March - ing forward
They're great birds, resident but I only see them about three times a year!
The arrival of the Covid-19 virus in France and Switzerland has resulted in my birding becoming
very local, my wife is a nurse so me keeping away from civilisation reduces the risks for her as well, they need to keep as many care staff as they can free from sickness! Therefore apart from once a week visits to the shops in nearby Thônes it’s been birding on foot only, all very green of me:t:. No new species noted on those visits but nesting in full swing at the heronry by the cheese shop and the wintering
Alpine Chough flock (at least 50 birds) whistling and squeaking all around the town, one group were visiting a balcony where presumably someone puts out food, the birds waiting their turn by clinging onto the vertical surface of the building like some giant black Treecreepers. Perhaps a ‘splinter group’ from the Thônes flock paid a surprise visit to our place on 7th, about twenty of them all trying to take rosehips from one rosebush in front of the house, very Hitchcockian:eek!:!
4th One of the
Grey Heron wandered up the valley, flying behind the house and down towards the river, I have yet to see any waterfowl or wader species here so the heron is the only ‘water bird’ on the garden list. The same day the first
White Wagtail returned from lower altitudes, right on schedule (in 2019 it was on the 6th, in 2018 the 5th!)
7th A good day, firstly the cheap birdseed (lots of millet in it) paid dividends again, I’ll never be able to top last November’s Pine Bunting but a nice male
Rock Bunting obviously approved of the food on offer, joining in with the still present Yellowhammer flock for a few minutes before melting away as the species always seems to do here, it’s a once or twice a year bird around the house, always in early spring. At least this time I had my camera handy before it moved on. In the afternoon we donned snowshoes and walked up to the family’s old summer pasture barn with my mother-in-law, on the way up we could see the young female
Golden Eagle circling high overhead, a minute later the young male whooshed over at little more than treetop height (the trees are very tall mind you). So it’s survived the winter after all. The woodland up there is usually guaranteed to produce Crossbill sightings but once again we drew a blank, not surprising I suppose as I see that in the whole of Haute-Savoie (which is a much forested département) there have been only 8 sightings all year! One species that has colonised Haute-Savoie in the last ten years, spreading presumably from Switzerland, is
Red Kite, we haven’t proved breeding close to us yet but a pair were seen in Thônes at the start of the month, a smart individual glided over us as we wended our weary way back down.
8th Finally a
Bullfinch appeared by the house, I usually see them year round but since the 28 December not a peep (or should it be ‘meep’?). A few days later there were two calling but I couldn’t see whether it was a pair or not. I had a nice mammal sighting at dawn as I was topping up the feeders, 3
Brown Hares, two lolloping across the field and another right by the house, I’ve never seen more than two at one time up here, though around Geneva they’re more easily seen in daylight and in good numbers (there’s no hunting in Geneva Canton!).
10th As the weather got milder and milder the big
Brambling flock (to 100 most days) that has been with us all winter started to show signs of impending departure, some males started ‘singing’ and at dusk on the 10th there was a lot of intensive preening going on in the trees, something I’d not witnessed on previous evenings. Sure enough, the next morning, no more wheezing calls or flashes of orange to be seen, just three or four later in the day. Although there were around 20 a few days later I suspect it was a new group on passage, there was a flock of 19 Fieldfare the same day. So winter approaches its end (sort of, we usually get more snow in April!).
As if to reinforce the above point a pair of
Serin turned up on the 12th but like the Rock Bunting were apparently passing through, we should get a pair breeding later on in spring though.
More mammal action on
14th, after seeing one behind the house early in the month I could see seven
Roe Deer together in the distant fields mid-morning and bird-wise another nice sign of spring, the first
Dunnock scuttling through some dead branches between us and the house under construction next door. Last year’s first was also on 14th March which I find somehow reassuring, what with all the chaos in the world of humankind currently. Another expected arrival was the first
Black Redstart, just up the road at the farm, my spreadsheet logging their arrivals over the past 14 years shows the 16th as the average date (at our altitude anyway).
Made three ascensions to the
Pygmy Owl area, on the 12th I managed to hear one a couple of times at dusk but it was somewhere deep in the forest ‘off-piste’ as it were, so no sightings since the early January one, the snow was still pretty deep too (see photo)!