once the weather calms down, I reckon the skies will be full of these wonderful birds…
3 Likes
Went scouring the early night skies for the comet… and/or the Grues… but neither were in view…
has anyone seen anything… or heard yapping in the skies ??
Please don’t wish them on us yet - much as I love them.
The grues flying over are harbingers of cold weather. I’m enjoying the mild autumn after all the rain.
1 Like
We had a hard frost this morning, and this evening when I got home the leaves on my vine had started turning brown and some had already fallen.
well, we’ve had a friendly Praying Mantis playing hide and seek today…
couldn’t make up its mind whether to come indoors or stay outside…
kept wandered up and down the window reveal… two steps inside… then three steps back out…
finally found some friendly bats to visit behind the shutters.
Now I don’t know what finally happened but at start of play…
there were 8 bats behind the lhs shutter with one, bright green PMantis edging towards 'em…
Late afternoon, well before it got dark… and well before I would expect any bats to be flying… I checked and found no sign of the PMantis and only 2 bats… 
very odd…
A small ‘gaggle’ of grues flew over our garden this afternoon (we’re in the Limousin)
1 Like
Would some grues be gruesome? Asking for a friend. 
I’m always amazed how migrating birds find their way over such long distances, and especially over stretches of open sea.
3 Likes
Just watched our first batch of Grues flying overhead…
everything/everyone ground to a halt as we peered skyward…
their yapping could be heard long after they’d vanished in the brilliance of the blue sky…
It was as if Harry Potter had flung his Invisibility Cloak over 'em just as they successfully missed the church spire…
pouf… one minute there they were… the next… vanished…
marvellous…
Maybe the same lot, we saw some 2 evenings ago while having an apero! I love them!
Oops my photo is sideways and I can’t see the grus 
1 Like
25 octobre 2024
En Hesse, 34 300 grues sont comptabilisées en migration.
Ailleurs en France la migration n’est globalement pas très marquée.
They’ll be flying by Sunday November 3rd. The temperature is dropping sharply to 9 max / 3 min.
Look out for them on Saturday 2nd, the wind will be coming from the north. That will be the start of the big push. They tend to reach us (Lot et Garonne) by about 4-5pm.
2 Likes
excellent! I really don’t understand where they got to! Presumably behind the tree! There were 2 arrows and whilst not big were clear 
How wrong can I be! Nothing at all this last weekend. Still much too warm, unless they are on a different flightpath this year (sometimes happens). At the moment daytime temperatures are around 20 degrees and above 10 at night. Possibly mid month temperatures at night just above freezing - so maybe then.
We do have a wonderful starling murmuration at the moment.
2 Likes
We went to Limoges the weekend before last and as we were getting ready to leave at about 3pm on Sunday (27th) there were a load of grues flying overhead.
We then made a pit stop en route (Aire de Bédenac Ouest according to Google Maps) a couple of hours later (between 5:31 - 5:44 according to Google Maps) and saw a bunch again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same ones, but I don’t know what the airspeed of an unladen grue is.
African or European?
2 Likes
Vitesse de vol : 40 à 80 km/h en moyenne, plus de 100 km/h avec des vents favorables.
Yesterday (5th November) we had wave after wave of grues passing over the southern tip of 86. The individual groups were on the small side (50-100) but in total there must have been several thousands.
3 Likes