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Jouandis, France

Friday 10 June 2022 70 °F

TUESDAY, JUNE 7:

A lot has happened since my last posting! I had my role debut of Il Conte Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro in Alexandria, Virginia which was a great success and a wonderful program. Here is the cast in costume:

After the last Figaro performance, I headed straight to Dulles Airport for an absolutely dreadful 24-hour, 2-layover journey to Jouandis, France. Lufthansa even lost my bag. Incredibly annoying.

Anyway, after a day of as much rest I could afford to get without a change of clothes, I was able to get out to take some photos and to look for birds on tuesday. Here at this vocal program, CLA France, we are lucky enough to stay at a Château in the middle of the beautifully pastoral countryside.

The food isn’t bad either (Michelin-star chef!)

EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES abound:

As do EUROPEAN GOLDFINCHES:

And cows!

This beautiful pair of CIRL BUNTINGS was a fantastic life bird for me!

And another life bird, a WILLOW WARBLER, soon joined the male!

Who wasn’t particularly enthused:

BLACK REDSTART, reminiscent of my 2018 trip to Italy where these birds abounded:

Another awesome lifer was this EUROPEAN GREEN WOODPECKER!

And my final lifer that day was a fun one, a EURASIAN HOOPOE which I had been hoping to see for a long time due to this bird’s uniqueness! They have a nesting hole right by our pool!