A Brit abroad

Blog plug

Chris Conard, a friend of mine from California, has caught the bird blogging bug. His first account of a long road trip to Texas can be seen here. They see a mouthwatering selection of birds - makes me 'homesick' for Nearctic birding!

Winter wildfowl at the Etang de Saclay

This lunchtime David Rousseau kindly took me out to the Etang de Saclay. The cold weather had brought some very interesting species to the lake, including 7 White-fronted Goose (Oie rieuse), 1 Bean Goose (Oie des moissons, presumably Tundra race, but too distant to be sure), 3 flyover Greylags (Oie cendrée), and 1 Barnacle Goose (Bernache nonnette) of questionable origin in flight with 3 Canadas. Best of the ducks was 1 redhead Smew (Harle piette), but there were also good numbers of Teal (Sarcelle d'hiver), Shoveler (Canard souchet) and Pintail (Canard pilet). The White-fronts, Bean Goose and Smew were all in the same ice-free patch of water at the back of the lake, so I only managed a few terrible 'record shots':

White-fronts (rieuses) and Smew (Harle piette). The left-hand White-front is obviously orange-billed like the Greenland race, but the birds were too far away to be sure...

Smew (far left), Bean Goose (middle, facing left), White-front (far right)

Bean Goose

On my walk into work I heard a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Pic épeichette) drumming and calling, and got good views of a flock of Siskins (Tarin des aulnes).

Waxwings, Middle Spotted Woodpecker and other goodies

Today I took the train out to Colombes to search for a flock of wintering Waxwings (Jaseur boreal). I bumped into local birders Florent and Bruno, who had searched for the birds in vain for the past hour. There appeared to be no berries or other suitable Waxwing food in the areas the birds had previously been seen, so I wandered into the car park of a nearby tower block. There I found several Pyracantha bushes laden with berries, two more birders (Dave, another expat Brit, and Raoul, also a photographer) and... the Waxwings!

Bad hair day...

Several Redwings (Grive mauvis) were also enjoying the feast.

I spent the rest of the day in the Bois de Vincennes, and along with a couple more birders, relocated Olivier Laporte's obliging male Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Pic mar) in the north of the park. Amazing that this species (and Black Woodpecker) can be found in the centre of Paris!

A large mixed finch flock contained at least two Serins...

... and attracted the attention of a local Kestrel (Crecerelle).

Nearby on Lac de Mande, an ugly hybridisation looks set to happen.

Red Squirrels are common here too.

In the evening I returned to the Black Woodpecker (Pic noir) hole for another photo attempt. It arrived much closer to dusk today.

Note to self: stand further away next time!

Zurich

Last weekend found me in lovely Zurich, for social rather than birding reasons (but the bins came along nonetheless).

In between gorging on chocolate and cheese, I wandered down to the Zurichsee, which seemed to be covered with Mute Swans (Cygne tuberculé).

Amongst them was this Whooper Swan (Cygne chanteur), though its origins are questionable...

The waterbirds were clearly used to being fed, which allowed me to get some close-up digibinned shots of drake and duck Pochard (Fuligule milouin),

a preening Tufted Duck (Fuligule morillon)...

... a displaying Coot (Foulque macroule)...

and a Common Gull (Goéland cendré).

Most interesting birds of the trip were a Black-bellied Dipper (Cincle plongeur) seen from the train up to Uetliberg, and a male Hen Harrier (Busard Saint-Martin) when my plane touched down at Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Zurich by night:

Black magic

Thanks to a hot tip from local birder and fellow digiscoper Olivier Laporte, I decided to take the train to the Bois de Vincennes to visit a tree which often holds a roosting Black Woodpecker in the winter. I found the tree without too much difficulty, and set my scope on a large, promising-looking hole. A flicker of movement caught my attention - could it already be in the hole? No, just a Starling prospecting nest sites. I wondered how the Black Woodpecker would react to this intrusion, Starlings being able to vigorously defend nest holes against much bigger birds. Was I going to dip because of a bloody Starling?

At least half an hour passed by, the monotony interrupted occasionally by passers-by wondering what I was looking at ("Il y a un pic qui aime dormir dans cet arbre"). Finally I see a large black bird with a deeply flapping flight heading right at me. Bingo! It landed on the tree a few feet down from the hole, and slightly obscured behind the trunk. I waited, finger poised on the shutter, for the bird to approach the hole. Nothing. I looked up from the camera and the bird had disappeared! I cautiously moved around the tree, to discover to my horror that I'd been watching the wrong bloody hole! Thinking I'd blown it, I nonetheless decided to set up my camera on the new hole in the remote hope that the woodpecker would reappear - and miracle of mircales, it did! Here are the sequence of shots I managed, over what seemed like an eternity but was probably no more than a minute. It then vanished back into the hole, and since the light was fading fast, I vanished too.

I went home and poured myself a generous glass of red wine. La vie est belle!

Campus Crossbills

While walking through campus this morning, a crunching sound from the conifers above alerted me to the presence of 13 Crossbills (Bec-croisé des sapins)- my 9th species of finch on campus!

A Brambling (Pinson du Nord) was present in the regular spot near my office...

... and Black, Green, Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers were all calling (Pics noir, vert, épeiche et épeichette).

Les Miz

On Saturday I set out to visit La Molette and La Courneuve Regional Park, to look for wintering Penduline Tits (Rémiz penduline), and to join a birding group from the Ile-de-France Ornithological Society (Corif). In the former, I was successful, but despite many hours searching I was unable to locate any other birders!

The two lakes that form La Molette were both completely frozen on my arrival (as was I). Fortunately I quickly located 3 (or were there 4?) Penduline Tits feeding in the reed mace. The birds were unobtrusive and easy to lose sight of, but tended to stick close to a small flock of Blue Tits (Mésange bleue), which was often the easiest way to relocate them.

A surprise find was this Water Pipit (Pipit spioncelle) walking around on the frozen lake surface.

Also present were 3 Snipe (Bécassine des marais), 15 Teal (Sarcelle d'hiver) and several Fieldfares (Grive litorne).

I spent the rest of the day walking around the large Parc de La Courneuve. The Grand Lac here was mostly frozen, and c. 200 gulls were sitting on the ice. Most were Black-headed Gulls (Mouette rieuse), but there was also a small group of Yellow-legged Gulls (Goéland leucophée).

Three Great Crested Grebes (Grèbe Huppé) remained in one of the few ice-free portions of the lake.

A dash of the exotic was added by two Wood Ducks and this Silver Teal.

There was also much of interest in the wooded parts of the park, including many Siskins (Tarin des aulnes), Short-toed Treecreepers (Grimpereau des jardins) and Crested Tits (Mesange huppée). A confiding Weasel was a nice surprise.

Green Woodpeckers (Pic vert) were abundant, and I was able to get very close to this feeding male.

As I left, a Woodcock (Bécasse des bois) flew over. Not a bad haul for a place that's only 2 train stops and a short bus ride from the Gare du Nord!

Hawfinch heaven

Today the sun finally shone, so Romain (birder in my department, who has been instrumental in teaching me French birding jargon) and I decided to have another digiscoping session with our local Hawfinches. This gorgeous male landed reasonably close to me and sat in a treetop bathed in the evening light - lovely!

Note the lack of dark markings around the eye and the overall drabness of the female in comparison.

In the last of the light a different Brambling from the previous day came in a little closer.

Le campus est vraiment excellent pour les fringillidés!

Grosbec casse-noyaux, Pinson du Nord et une oie mystérieuse...

I think I've pinned down the Hawfinches on campus - they seem to favour a spot a few minutes' walk from my office in the last hour of daylight. These photos were taken between (and during!) downpours, so the light wasn't great.

You can see why they call them 'grosbecs' over here!

Preening following heavy rain.

Hawfinch by moonlight.

An added bonus was this male Brambling which flew in to dry off between showers.

While watching the Brambling I heard several geese calling, and shortly after a flock of about 150 large grey geese flew over.

On size and colour they had to be Greylag or Bean Geese. The range map in my Collins guide suggests that Bean is more likely in this region, and they didn't sound like 'farmyard' geese, so I'm inclined to go with the latter - does anyone have any comments?

Update: actually, found a checklist of birds in the Ile-de-France region, and Greylags are much more likely, especially since someone else in the region had a large flyover of Greylags yesterday!

More campus birding

My walk to work through the wooded Orsay campus continues to produce good quality birds. I've now heard the Black Woodpecker a few times, though have only had one flight view so far. The weather has been grey and overcast all week, which makes digiscoping tough, but got a little closer to a Short-toed Treecreeper:

I'm also seeing Crested Tits sporadically, but none have been camera-friendly so far. The large diversity of trees makes the campus excellent for finches: Siskins seem to be everywhere, and a small flock of Bullfinches often assembles outside my office window.

This Hawfinch was sharing a tree with a Brambling - shame I only had my bins with me to take this photo!

Postscript: the next day I did manage a distant shot of a singing Crested Tit, though obviously I hope to improve on these...

YESSSSSS!!!

A Black Woodpecker just flew past my office window calling - my first WP lifer in over 2 years!

Bonjour from Orsay

Last weekend, my parents drove me and my stuff over to Orsay via many wrong turns, one of which took us directly past the Eiffel Tower!. Here's a photo of the town - I live on the ridgeline behind, which offers great views of the town and is certainly giving my calves a good workout!

I've been busy enough settling in that birding hasn't really been on the agenda, except for what has shown up in my garden.

I live very close to a reasonable-sized wood, which makes for reasonably good birding. Perhaps of most interest to British birders are regular visits by Short-toed Treecreepers (identified by their Coal Tit-like contact calls). Have only managed a crappy digibinned shot so far, but will try to improve on this soon.

Also nice to see that all of our squirrels are Red!

My walk to work through the wooded campus shows promise. I bumped into some students digiscoping birds coming to a feeder (who says there are no birders in France?), and was instantly gripped off by their stunning shots of a Hawfinch. They also told me that Black Woodpeckers are sometimes seen on the campus, though so far I've only come across Green and Great Spotted.

A walk to the local duckpond was less fruitful following the previous night's frost! California it ain't...