Jonathan Kemp; A naturalist in the south of France

    There were six of us. One had come prepared with a beautifully crafted walking stick, a straight piece of polished boxwood with a three pronged horn from a roe deer fixed to the top.   It was a cool day in April, there was still snow on the ground, as we were walking at about 1300 metres altitude. We were there to search out the nesting holes of a little known owl, the Tengmalm’s owl (Fr. Chouette de Tengmalm) . We had spread out in a line across a forested hillside where the Tengmalms had been previously heard calling consistently, and trying - not very successfully - to keep the line coordinated as we scrambled through the undergrowth looking for suitable nesting holes.   It was not the first time I had been to this forest. Having never seen, or heard, a Tengmalm’s, I had been with a friend to spend the night early in February to listen and, hopefully, see this owl. It is the period when the males are making an easily identifiable territorial call, ...

  Sitting like an oversized burial mound on the coastal plains near Gruissan is a hillock called the Roc de Conilhac. Surrounded by flat lands,  lagoons (Fr.etangs) , marshlands (Fr. Marais) and some grazing land ( Fr. paturage ), with ranges of hills in the distance and the town of Narbonne to the north, it attracts birds and birders every year during the post-nuptial migration period which last from July through to the end of October. Equipped with telescopes and binoculars, people line up in a loose group and call out the birds that they see coming from the east. Regulars bring chairs or stools to ease the aches from standing several hours peering into the distance, and refreshing cups of coffee and a picnic are always welcome.                                          ...