Well not exactly ours, but we do play host to quite a wide variety of birds here at the lake. Over the last few years we have noticed a pair of Egrets (Héron Blanc in French) fishing and perching around the lake. You can also see them up in the neighbours field when you drive past sometimes. The only thing is they are really difficult to photograph – it is now a running joke that when I go to quickly get my camera out, the blooming thing will fly off, as if it knows… At the moment there is only one Egret chez nous, but plenty of ducks who have overwintered here and a couple of normal herons. The cormorants are back too, ‘tho they are not that welcome here as there are a large number of them and they eat an awful lot of fish.
Twice a year we witness the southward (end Oct, beg. Nov) migration and northward (from Feb) migration of the Common Crane. The Grus are amazing birds and fly in huge numbers from Sweden to Spain across France from NE to SW. They fly at 40-80km/h which means they can cross France in less than a day. They fly at between 200-1500m altitude neatly avoiding the wind turbines and often you can hear them before you see them as they are quite chatty birds, squawking to each other. At night this can be quite an eerie sound until you remember it is the Grus. Click on these two photos to see them flying over us here.
