We get hoopoes here and orioles but a couple of days ago there was a thrush on the lawn, first one I’ve seen in 5 years here!
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Thrushes are in very short supply here too.
It took me a while to get used to not-seeing birds I would have seen “around the house” all the time in UK… thankfully, there is such a wide variety of other birds which fill that slot… many of which I would never see in UK… except in my bird-books. 
first time I saw a spotted nutcracker… was near our home here in France. OH was amazed that I knew immediately what it was. I had seen it in one of my books… once seen never forgotten…
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Fingers crossed you get back to France safely… in the not too distant future.
Last time I saw a song thrush was in the UK can’t remember seeing one here in France, though I have seen the odd mistle thrush, (but never tell the French chasseurs they like to shoot them)…
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Blue tits x 50 on our bird tables + various anonymous brown jobs. Sparrows by the bucket load, Woodpecker, Heron, Buzzards, Owls, and once the warm weather arrives, Kingfisher (by virtue of a small fishing lake)(he waits on the end of the landing stage and leaves little mementos! ), Orioles. plus Jackdaws, Crows but only seen Hoopoes in the garden once. We also get a Nightingale which is absolutely magic on a warm summers evening. So beautiful. (This is Deux-Sevres).
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You may well be joking… 
but I’ve not seen Song Thrushes on the list authorised by our Prefecture… are they ??? I know that pigeons and magpies have been classed as “vermin” at various times, but I’ve not seen our “songbirds” go the same way… thankfully.
We saw our first hoopoe four weeks ago but that was just a single bird.
In the last week our resident Western whip snake made its first appearance and is now nearly a metre long, we’ve encountered two large sanglier on our afternoon walks and on Thursday in a client’s garden a hedgehog appeared out of hibernation.
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Well, no sign of our snake… but I did hear a loud snuffling and thought of hedgehogs… then decided I was mistaken… too early… but perhaps not. As kids, we would watch from an upstairs window… waiting for the hedgehogs to make their nightly trip from woodland at the bottom of the garden…up onto the patio. From the row they made one would never suspect the small creatures that would eventually come into view…
I shall keep my ears and eyes on alert this evening and perhaps I will spot one of our “locals”.
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They may not be on the official list, but I’ve heard many a chasseur francais, say they are a délicatesse une fois cuite. Sad in this day and age!
A defaut de grive on mange du merle. But, this saying has many connotations…
As we have some of the “chasse police” living in our commune… our guys toe the line… and so they should. We’ve 3 different chasse groups and the thought of that lot “doing their own thing”… or even one gun-happy chappy… just doesn’t bear thinking about.
Hi Stella, it depends where you live in France but the French do not have a good reputation for birds. In the Ardennes I only managed to see a buzzard occasionally. Unfortunately a lot of birds in France are deliberately killed.
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It is appalling, I* have (along with lots of people** eg the LPO***) been campaigning for years to stop this 
- French person
** French people
*** French organisation
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Oh dear… “the French”… that blanket phrase… crops up yet again… 
Cruelty should be stopped… I agree… but please do not afford mass blame to the entire French nation.
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I used to wonder why you picked up on this, and rolled your eyes 
…
But now I appreciate your vigilance, 'cos it’s a sloppy habit of mind, and there ought to be a symbol you could attach to deserving francophobic comments…
Any suggestions? 
Cheers Peter, I really dislike blanket statements … for any nationality or ethnicity or whatever… it is so unfair for the many to be blamed for the bad-actions (whatever) of the few… grrrr 
now I’m off to throw another log on the fire… the sun is wonderful but the wind is perishing…brrrr
Never seen any of those around here, unfortunately !
Snowing here Stella 
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We got some more logs in yesterday…fire is blazing… nope, don’t want your snow, thanks very much… you can keep it with my compliments…
Perhaps this is the time to mention that (in my childhood in UK) Grandma used to stop using her fireplace 1st April (sadly not a joke)… no more fires until 1st October… no matter how cold it got… aaargh. I loved my time living with her, taught me to be hardy…