A Brit abroad

Prague

Last weekend I went on a purely touristy visit to the city of Prague. By touristy, I mean that I left my scope at home - the bins had to come given the outside chance of Grey-headed Woodpecker and Collared Flycatcher in the city parks. No luck with those species, but I did manage to digibin a male Great Spotted Woodpecker...

... and the Prague skyline!

Otherwise, two Common Sandpipers (migrants, I suppose) spotted from a pedalo on the River Vltava and the usual array of city/parkland birds (including abundant Short-toed Treecreeper) were about all the birding I managed between sightseeing, eating, drinking and siestas.

Sunset over St Vitus Cathedral.

Haut Jura - best of the rest

Our main motivation for visiting the Foret de Risoux was to seek out several hard-to-find species in France: Eurasian Pygmy-Owl, Tengmalm's Owl, Three-toed Woodepecker, Hazel Grouse, Common Rosefinch and Wallcreeper. Save for a few seconds worth of looks at my lifer Hazel Grouse (Gélinotte des bois) perched and in flight, we failed to find any of these species. In fact, the forest as a whole was astonishingly devoid of bird activity - if it's birds you're after here, be sure NOT to visit in July! Brief 'highlights' of several hours spent walking forest trails were flyover Crossbills (Bec-croisé des sapins), several Willow Tits (Mésange boréale - these predominantly grey birds are very different from the British race), Tree pipit (Pipit des arbres) and heard-only Black Woodpecker (Pic noir) and Woodcock (Bécasse des bois). Yves even managed of few seconds flight view of a female Capercaillie (Grand Tétras) - God knows how I missed that one! On the bright side, we did escape the worst of the heatwave in impressive scenery.

Anyone know what this colourful spider is?

At the Lac des Joux, even the Fieldfare (Grive litorne) colony had gone silent, and the Tufted Ducks and Pochards (Fuligules morillon et milouin) were starting to moult into their eclipse plumage. Avian highlight was several flyovers by a Redpoll (sizerin flammé) - presumably a local breeder. This young frog was barely the size of my thumbnail.

The countryside around Lac de Bouverans is great for Red Kites (Milan royal).

The lake itself held a large family of Whinchats (Tarier des prés), and a Hobby (Faucon hobereau) in hot pursit of dragonflies kept us entertained. The sunset was pretty spectacular too.

On our last morning we drove into Switzerland to bird the Creux du Van, but much searching of Wallcreeper habitat failed to turn up the goods.

There was a little more bird activity here than at previous sites, including close views of a Nutcracker (Cassenoix moucheté) on the steep ascent through the forest, several close fly-bys of Alpine Swift (Martinet à ventre blanc) and Crag Martin (Hirondelle de rochers), breeding Kestrel (Faucon crécerelle) and Wheatear (Traquet motteux), and a great view of a female Water Pipit (Pipit spioncelle) with a beak full of grubs.

We were also treated to excellent views of a family party of Alpine Ibex (Bouquetin des Alpes).

This baby is already showing signs of developing horns.

Haut Jura - insects

In contrast to the almost complete lack of bird activity, large numbers of butterflies were active in the sunny clearings of the Foret de Risoux. At the larger end of the spectrum, several Silver-washed Fritillaries

and Dark Green Fritillaries were seen.

This White Admiral was a lifer...

... as was Small Blue.

At least two different 'Mountain Ringlet'-type species were seen, but were too flighty for me to identify.

Fortunately this Ringlet is the one that occurs commonly throughout England.

The smaller fritillaries included Pearl-bordered, Small Pearl-bordered and False Heath (below).

At the Lac des Joux we added Lesser Marbled Fritillary to the list.

Position of the month was jointly awarded to these Common Blue Butterflies and Damselflies.

Face-to-face with a Yellow-winged Darter.

At the Lac de Bouverans, a Lesser Purple Emperor allowed close approach.

I was having trouble obtaining a photo showing the purple sheen on the upperwings until Yves took matters into his own hands- literally!

Haut Jura - plants

To escape the heat and the crowds on the 14th July holiday weekend, I joined Yves Massin for a weekend of walking, camping and butterfly watching in the Haut Jura (primarily in the Foret de Risoux). Fortunately Yves knows his plants much better than I do, and was able to identify many of the interesting specimens (mostly orchids) that we saw.

A tiny Black Vanilla Orchid (Orchis vanillé) with Ringlet sp.

Common Twayblade (Listère à feuilles ovales)

A past-its-best Heath Spotted Orchid (Orchis tacheté)

Lesser Butterfly Orchid (Orchis à deux feuilles), the only individual we saw.

Royal Helleborine (Epipactis sanguin)

Round-headed Orchid (Orchis globuleux)

The attractive Martagon Lily (Lys martagon) was scattered throughout the forest.

In the damp areas adjacent to the Lac des Joux were many Marsh Helleborines (Epipactis des marais)

Fragrant Orchids (Gyymnadenie à long éperon) were common throughout - this one is garnished with a Yellow-winged Darter.

We saw several parasitic broomrape (orobanche) growing close to the bases of conifers.

Catching up

The conference season approaches, and as usual I find myself racing to get things finished for the end of July (no bad thing given the general lack of birding interest) - hence the lack of recent blog entries. Two weekends ago I headed down to the south of France to see what I could see. In the hills north of Montpellier, there was a deafening chorus of Cicadas.

I also saw my first (of many) Great Banded Graylings, a larger and prettier butterfly than you might imagine from this photo.

Of birding interest, a few flyover Rollers (Rollier d'Europe), Bee-eaters (Guepier d'Europe), a lone male Montagu's Harrier (Busard cendre), and this Southern Grey Shrike (Pie-grieche meridionale).

Sunday morning was uncharacteristically overcast, so we headed to the Peau de Meau reserve in the Crau to look for desert species. Bird-wise, it was very quiet - a lone singing lark was probably Short-toed (Alouette Calandrelle), a single Stone Curlew (Oedicneme criard) and Lesser Kestrel (Faucon crecerellette) were typical birds of this arid zone. Rollers were fairly common, though not very approachable - here are some 'atmospheric' shots through the heat haze.

A Hoopoe (Huppe Fasciee) landed in a tree for just long enough to get this photo.

By 1130 things were starting to get hot....

If the birds were somewhat inactive, a nearby stream was teeming with insect life, including this attractive Copper Demoiselle...

... and Blue-eyed Hooktail (thanks to John Oates for the IDs on these).

This Scarce Swallowtail was most confiding.

The afternoon was spent dodging mosquitos in the Camargue. Flooded fields in the north hosted some decent gull flocks - mostly Black-headed and Yellow-legged (Mouette rieuse et Goeland leucophee), with smaller numbers of Mediterranean Gulls (Mouette melanocephale).

I found a lone Gull-billed Tern (Sterne hansel) in their midst.

Despite the early date, many migrant shorebirds were noted, the most common of which were Wood Sandpipers (Chevalier sylvain), plus a few Common and Green Sandpipers and a Greenshank (Chevaliers culblanc, guignette et aboyeur). Black-winged Stilts (Echasse blanche) were abundant as ever.

At the reserves of La Capelliere and Salin de Badon, many young Night Herons (Bihoreau gris) were in evidence, and a single Spoonbill (Spatule blanche) was a pleasant surprise.

Other wildlife at these sites including this sorry-looking Scarlet Dragonfly

a few of the native turtles (Cistude d'Europe)

and several of these large, bright green lizards (ID anyone?)

On racing back for the world cup final, we were extremely fortunate to see a Eurasian Bittern (Butor etoile) fly right over the car - a good bird to end the day on. Drowning our sorrows after France's defeat.

Brit abroad at the movies

Too hot to bird at the moment! Non-birding highlight was getting great views of a Bottlenose Dolphin which has inexplicably chosen to linger off of Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary last weekend. Excellent photos can be seen on the Southend Ornithological Group (SOG) website.

Surfbirds has just added a cool feature that allows birders to upload videos. I haven't used the video option on my CoolPix that much, but have added a few 'videoscoped' movies from my time in the US. The quality isn't great, but they show some pretty cool behaviour including 'spinning' Wilson's Phalaropes, lekking Sage Grouse, and a pair of Pied-billed Grebes feeding young. They can be found on this page - enjoy!