A Brit abroad

California dreamin'

Migrants are coming thick and fast through Orsay right now. Floyover migrants logged from my flat include flyover Skylarks (Alouette des champs), Meadow Pipit (Pipit farlouse), Redwings (Grive mauvis) and bizarrely, a female Pheasant (Faisan de Colchide)! I took a long walk up on the plateau, logging masses of migrant passerines, the best of which was a flock of 12 Woodlarks (Alouette lulu).

While the sheer number of birds moving here has been impressive, variety has been low. By contrast, my old haunts in Yolo County, California have been producing the goods - 2 American Tree Sparrows (constituting the first and second county records) and an American Golden Plover in the Yolo Wildlife Area were astonishing enough, but paled into insignificance compared to a find by John Sterling and Scott Terrill along Putah Creek - mainland North America's first Taiga Flycatcher!!! John's terrific, and diagnostic, photos of the bird can be seen here. One of the lucky few that saw the bird yesterday spotted a Greater Roadrunner crossing Hwy 128 - that would have been 4 county ticks in one day for me :-(

On the bright side, I'm heading off to Ouessant tomorrow, France's ornithological equivalent of the Scillies or Farralones. Some moderately interesting stuff has been seen there recently (Pallid Harrier, Lesser Grey Shrike), and recent arrivals of American passerines on the Azores are promising. It doesn't look like I'll be adding Pink-footed Goose to my French list just yet though - the long-staying pair on Ouessant were recently shot! Should be an interesting few days...

Bad form

Oops - it's the peak of migration and I haven't managed a single birding trip in the last two weeks! This has much to do with moving into a new apartment - it's cheaper, nicer, closer to work and the rail link to Paris than the previous one, but best of all it boasts a small balcony and a mini-bar! Given its more urban location, I suspect the 'garden' list won't be so interesting, although things got off to a promising start with a very vocal Black Woodpecker (Pic noir) and Short-toed Treecreeper (Grimpereau des jardins) as the first two species on the list!

I returned to the UK this weekend for my Dad's birthday, and given the number of people I arranged to see, I didn't even bother bringing my bins! In spite of this, and the lousy weather in London on Saturday, I decided to walk around the lake in Kensington Gardens. Perhaps the most unusual sighting was an adult Yellow-legged Gull (Goeland leucophee).

Black-headed Gulls (Mouette rieuse) and Tufted Ducks (Fuligule morillon) were the dominant waterfowl.

In fact there was little variety among the duck species observed, an adult male Ruddy Duck (Erismature rousse) perhaps being the most interesting. A couple of Grey Herons (Heron cendre) seemed pretty tolerant of passers by.

After a particularly heavy downpour, I spotted this young Stock Dove (Pigeon colombin) on the lawn. I haven't seen this species in central London parks before - could it have been a grounded migrant? I was able to get quite close to it - not sure that it was in the best of health, although it was still able to fly without any apparent difficulty.

Any further urban birding was curtailed by another downpour and the death of my camera battery.