Wildlife Wonderland!
I was a passionate wildlife watcher back in the UK and was pretty good with the names of most species of plant, animal, or bird that I came across. Not so much insects, but I’m not an instect-y person. Anyhow, now I live in France there is sooo much that’s new as well as an abundance of certain species that are considered rarities in the UK. There’s so much to see it’s keeping us all quite busy! So, what new and wonderful creatures have I discovered since moving here?
Well, the warm sun is certainly bringing the wildlife out on display. A few days ago we were treated to well over 20 large birds of prey riding thermals in the skies above our house. It was wonderful! I managed to get a couple of reasonable photos with my camera too.
At first I thought (hoped) they might have been short-toed eagles (this website was my main reference, then I checked images on Google to see whether they looked similar) but the underwings, with the white “v” shape, are quite distinctive, so definitely not short-toed eagles. Then I thought maybe they were booted eagles but while writing this post I’ve been back and forward with Google images to try and figure it out and now I’m thinking it was one of the vulture species that frequent this area. Oh well. Given the numbers involved, it probably was “a kettle of vultures” – in which case I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for booted eagle.
Lucky me though, because only a couple of days later I spotted a short-toed eagle (Circaetus gallicus) flying on the low hills in the Faby Vallee when I was on the way to drop DD at school! I’d say I haven’t been that excited about a wildlife sighting since I can’t remember but…
Did I mention the stag beetle (Lucanus cervus) that was flying above the hazelnut trees at dusk the other night?
Or the western whip snake (Hierophis viridiflavus) that was sunbathing on the wall, not far from where I saw the stag beetle the night before. (James saw this not me but I know it’s out there.)
Then there’s the midwife toad (Alytes), bip-bip-bipping away from under a rock somewhere near our front door. James and I were both wondering what it was that was beeping downstairs, thinking it was an electronic device malfunctioning somewhere in a box, but T, our landlady, told us it was a toad. A toad! I haven’t seen it yet but it’s out there calling every night now it’s warm.
Oh, and the giant peacock moth (Saturnia pyri). Let’s not forget this one!
It’s called a grand paon de nuit in French (the large peacock of the night) and I’d say this particular creature was lucky that I had some washing to do first thing in the morning because I dread to think what the cats would have done with it had they spotted it first. Yes, one morning we awoke to find the largest moth I have ever seen, the largest moth in Europe no less, resting on the wall outside our house. While we were watching it the sun moved around and started to warm it up (it had been in the shade, until then) so, when it began to show signs of movement we gently persuaded it into a box then relocated it into the trees further down the lane. We’ve not seen it since but it’s out there, no doubt. Our neighbour, who’d seen one flying around a few nights before and had mentioned it to me, specifically because she was worried about our cats eating it, was equally excited when I interrupted her breakfast so she could come and take a look!
And finally, processionary caterpillars, which are the larval stage of the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoeidae). These are my least favourite “new” discovery but that’s probably just because I haven’t yet seen what James describes as the millipede on steroids that is living somewhere near the terrace. When that pops into range it will take the creepy crawly top spot. Uck. The caterpillars are interesting though because despite looking relatively friendly – they’re furry, you know – and innocently marching through the forest nose to tail with one another, they can leave us humans with very irritated skin and can also be fatal to dogs. And they’re everywhere! We thought the webbed nests on the ends of branches of the evergreens around were spider nests but it seems they’re very densely populated caterpillar homes. The lifecycle of is pretty interesting too because they live in the tree until they’re ready to pupate, when they then leave the tree so they can burrow into the ground. The day I (literally) stumbled across them, there were well over 100 (I gave up counting at 100) marching in a long chain. DD spotted them first, which is how I ended up treading on a few. Luckily we didn’t touch them – I know enough about furry caterpillars to know better than that but it was helpful to be reminded and to be informed about their toxicity to dogs when James mentioned what we’d seen to a neighbour.
That’s it for all the exciting new stuff. Then there’s more every day stuff to here that I’d see every now and again where we were in the UK but here they’re common and everywhere. I can add to this list jays, redstarts, and orchids.
