The tales of an English family following their dream in Foussais-Payre, a quiet corner of rural France
La Vie en Foussais » Posts for tag 'wildlife'

Spotted: The happy hoopoe 6 comments

There has been much a bit of excitement at our house over the last couple of months due to the arrival of a Hoopoe. The hoopoe is a rather odd-looking bird, one that we had never seen before as they rarely venture up to england. They do migrate up to europe at nesting time though, so we were rather delighted when we first spotted him pecking around outside out house, looking for worms.

We have only ever spotted him a couple of times, although we have heard him more often thanks to his “woop-woop-woop” call. When I first heard it I thought it was an alarm clock going off somewhere in the house! After hunting high and low, I discovered him sitting on next-door’s roof. Sadly, by the time I got the video ready, he had flown off

Well, this morning he returned and, thanks to our shiny new camcorder, I managed to capture him in close-up. I apologies now as this was first thing in the morning so the camera-work is a bit shaky, and everyone was eating breakfast with the TV on, so it’s a bit noisy. But I’m glad we managed to get some close-ups of this guy as he really is quite a special bird.

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/8Bjcup51N5o

A cry in the dark…by what? 5 comments

Okay folks, I’m looking for some help again here. This creature has been entertaining us at night for a while so I thought I’d capture it’s call and see if any of my faithful readers can help me again with identifying it.  You were all so great with the frogs & nightingales, I’m sure someone can tell me what this thing is :)

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/qxDkRL7Vexo

Your guesses in the comments would be great. Thanks!

Look who I found hiding in the weeds… 2 comments

I found a frog!

This big fella was hiding behind the breeze-blocks piled up next to the garage. I’m reliably informed that he’s a toad, not a frog (thanks Susie for clearing that up :) )

After watching him amusing himself by poking his head into every crack in our wall, I rescued him and released him down by the lake.

Surprisingly, none of the ladies of the house chose to try their luck and kiss him, so I guess they may have missed their chance to find a prince charming…!

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