No no, that's just the usual state of my woodland 🙂 I do not clear windfall or rotten trees, and there are many of both much to the delight of assorted woodpeckers.
Indeed, it would have been a lucky guess. The trail is actually a deer path, well-used by six to seven regular Roe Deer more or less daily.
).
While the rest of you seem to be clocking up the Spring arrivals our corner of the Alps remains cool and damp, snow falling just a couple of hundred metres higher up so perhaps it's not surprising that my last addition was back in February. Birdsong on the increase though, and the Brambling are starting to look very smart (see the Talk Talk tribute photo attached
A particularly dingy-looking Treecreeper caught my attention an hour ago, opening the window I heard the song, confirming my suspicions, a male
52 Short-toed Treecreeper
shuffling mouse-like up the neighbours' cherry tree. I saw none until September last year after the excitement of a first breeding up here in 2022, hopefully it will stick around and attract a mate!
It's a thrush sp singing contest here H each dawn, even a Fieldfare joined in the chorus yesterday but I suspect the bird choirmaster (if there was such a thing..) would throw him out, not blessed with the melodic tones that Blackbird, Song and Mistle Thrush are. Someone heard a Redwing in song near Geneva the other day, I assume you hear them start to sing on their northbound migration stopovers in UK?
