This is an old photo, not very good , but you can see my friend…
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No photo but last night, for the first time in many years I saw a hedgehog in the garden. It was Jules that found it, we both heard a bang, long after dark, which sounded like a bird strike.
We both went out and he looked around and finally walked to the little spiky ball under a barrow. He sniffed it without touching it and readily came away with me when I told him to. The fact that normally his nose takes precedence over his ears and he came so willingly makes me wonder if they have met before and he has been prickled.
But I am very pleased to have seen it because I always assumed that my wild garden was heaven for hedgehogs and was sad to so rarely have seen them. Perhaps this makes the point, they have plenty of places to keep out of sight. 
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This isn’t about wild life nor about France but doesn’t really deserve a thread of its own. I am in Spain at the seaside. Early this morning I walked by the beach. I was watching a heron and diving gulls looking for breakfast. A cat appeared and went on the beach. It drank sea water. I was directly behind it and could see its little tongue lapping up the water. I was so surprised that I stood for some time watching. I left bewildered, especially as the sea water was from the Mar Menor which is even saltier than the nearby Mediterranean Sea.
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Thanks.
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I’ve finally seen the famous grues on the move. They’ve just spent a good few minutes circling around the house before reforming their V and moving on.
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Yesterday, as Jules and I traversed the top field and I paused a little way into the forest for the descent, he likewise paused but remained in the field, looking down at me.
He often prefers to continue along the field and I let him but stop him by standing on the long line to prevent him going onto the lane. This time he seemed to be making up his mind. To the lane or follow the old man, hmm. It was a battle of wills, neither of us moved but just then I saw, about 100 metres beyond him, a large deer. It was soon joined by half a dozen others but was debating, a bit like us, whether to catch up with the others or not. They started to move, so did she, and I automatically moved back towards Jules, intent on being close enough to his long line if he set off in pursuit. I stopped, realising that he hadn’t seen them and my move might be misinterpreted as giving in, which would encourage him to turn. At that very moment two things happened. The group broke into a run, and Jules moved to join me in the forest.
He never knew what he had missed.
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Disappointing. For the last 30 years or so the common redstart was as regular as clockwork, when I’d hear the male’s distinctive call every spring/summer. But no longer around it seems. Only just dawned on me that I haven’t heard that sound for a few years now.
It’s an insectivore and I can only assume that the great lack of insects, at least round my way, is the reason.
Not just round my way apparently…!
“Insects may be small, but their role in the natural world is monumental. Their decline is not just an ecological issue—it is a warning sign that the systems we rely on are under threat. Ignoring this crisis risks destabilizing ecosystems, threatening food production, and reducing nature’s ability to recover.”
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We watched an episode of David Attenborough’s latest series on “wildlife” in our gardens. He said the insect population has declined by 60% in the last 20 years. That is appalling.
As an example of the impact, a blue tit pair hatched 10 eggs. There were insufficient caterpillars to feed them and 9 of the nestlings died. Only one fledged.
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Isn’t that nature’s way of ensuring at least one survives? A similar thing happens with dogs, doesn’t it? Which is why they have such big litters sometimes. 
Also, come to think of it, why Victorian families were so large, along with a lack of contraception I suppose.
Sad to read this and I know I’m not going to change a thing by writing this but I wish folk would stop using chemicals in their gardens, cutting …no, making lawns, killing moles, voles etc and just letting things go a bit wild. Then perhaps these small birds would have a chance.
I think I might have written this before but on a trip from South to North through the middle of France..by the time you are past Clermont Ferrand, nature is gone. It’s all an industrial wasteland of chemical farmland with zero wildlife.
Like back in the 60s 70s 80s….let your bush grow a bit :)
Oh…we have loads of insects and birds here and that’s because it’s all a bit rough and no chemicals and tidy laws and the like. 
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Same here, the wild north of the Dordogne.
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From another bio enclave (18 year’s worth) - our nightingales are back in our valley and the cuckoos and redstarts have returned.
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We are fortunate, they’re still coming to our place, hopelessly trying, and failing, to build a nest in the eaves that actually defies gravity, and now seem to have opted for the ceramic bird’s nest holder instead, just in front of the kitchen. Fingers crossed that they manage to raise some young 
Screenshot of a recent recording of birdsong from the garden.
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They are the most hopeless nest builders, aren’t they. 
They try and build on the beams way up in our terrace roof. Three quarters of it always finishes up on the floor.
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I heard the first Cicada yesterday and cukoo last week but no nightingales just yet.
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First hoopoe this morning.
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We heard them 10 days ago (before the cold snap), and one flirted with an appearance before deciding it didn’t like the look of me loitering in the bushes, and promptly flew off. Since then, nada!
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I miss our hoopoe, they would sit on the window sill in the morning, looking at their own reflection and getting territorial! After 3 years living there we got a breeding pair and had the joy of watching them and their fledglings in the garden. They got so used to us they would happily fly past us as they went in and out their nest, in the gable wall of an old stone shed. Once we knew that was their nesting place, we didn’t bother repointing that area and left it to them.
I must hunt out some of the photos I took of them.
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