June 11-14: more lifers!

Villereal, France

Monday 27 June 2022 98 °F

JUNE 11-14 — still very behind in posting due to a crazy performance/music preparation schedule.

With the vocal program, Classic Lyric Arts, in full swing, I was birding a bit less yet of course still having some sightings. Unfortunately, manual focus also was accidentally jammed into place so it took a few days before I could properly troubleshoot a solution, so my photos will momentarily be even crappier for the time being. Here is a far-off EURASIAN MAGPIE in flight. This is also the only bird on my list for China as I remember seeing one at the Capital Airport on a layover in 2014, interestingly enough.

Despite my “busted” camera, I was able to net a lifer in the form of a very vocal CETTI’S WARBLER! Warblers here (technically a different taxonomic family) are, for the most part, drabber than New World Warblers.

A few RED KITES circled above:

And I found my life bird SHORT-TOED TREECREEPER, a wonderful species of deciduous trees here in southwestern Europe that greatly resembles America’s native Brown Creeper. Manual focus was acting up being 180mm of zoom so hence the horrible photo.

EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE:

And a EURASIAN HOOPOE had fledged! Amazing! What an ungainly creature.

I realized one of its siblings was still in the nest above, mustering up the courage to fledge:

And courage it needed due to an archnemesis, the farm cat Minette (French for pussy cat), roaming around the property. If it were up to me, Minette would stay inside, but alas she spent her days hunting fledgling Hoopoes — I’m not sure if any ended up surviving…