Eurasian Cranes in the Brenne

The other day we had to go up to Blois and as we drove through the fields around Azay le Ferron we noticed a flock of about 80 Eurasian Cranes (Fr. Grues cendrées) feeding. These will be overwintering or even resident birds, but they were in their full breeding plumage and looking splendid even in the low light of a dismal winter day.

 

Unfortunately I only had my phone with me, so this is the best photo I managed.

Several thousand cranes overwinter in the Brenne and they are one of the most spectacular species you can observe in the winter. If you come across these unmistakable birds, be as discrete as possible so as not to disturb them. They spook very easily.

They are one of the biggest birds in Europe, standing over a metre tall, with wingspans of over two metres. They weigh about 5 kilos.

Every morning they head out to feed in the fields, often favouring fields that have had a crop of maize. At dusk they will return to their 'dormitory' at the Etang de la mer rouge, in the heart of the Brenne. They are spectacular in flight, forming great V shapes in the sky, and trumpeting to each other as they fly.

France, Queen of the Roundabouts

One of the things some visitors to France comment on is just how many trafffic roundabouts there are in France. And they are not wrong. The statistics bear this out and show that France is a world leader in roundabouts. 

 This roundabout, in the industrial boondocks of Amboise, has an abandoned helipad in the centre.

According to the painstakingly calculated figures on the blog 'Beyond the Maps', the most roundabouts per population are to be found in mainly western France (Vendée, Loire-Atlantique, Landes, Mayenne) plus Pyrénées-Orientales in the south. The fewest roundabouts per population are around Paris and in the north east. We in Indre et Loire appear to sit in the middle. 

 A plane on a stick. To be precise, a Dassault Mirage IIIB two seater training jet previously of the French Air Force, now a roundabout decoration in Saint-Amand-Montrond

In terms of actual numbers of roundabouts there is a roughly east-west divide in the country, with the west being generally much more heavily endowed with roundabouts than the east. Toulouse takes the prize as the municipality with the most roundabouts (499 at last count). Virtually everywhere roundabout numbers are going up.

 

 A roundabout in the middle of le Blanc, a town about half an hour to the south of us.

 

France is the European record holder for roundabout density, easily outstripping neighbouring countries. The most famous roundabout in the country is of course the horror known as the Etoile, a six lane roundabout in central Paris, surrounding the Arc de Triomphe.

 

Arc de Triomphe and the Etoile.

This post is dedicated to entomologist Simon Leather, who loved aphids and France, but sadly died while being treated for colon cancer a few years ago. His blog is called 'Don't Forget the Roundabouts'.

Pouillé

It's quite amazing to a man who grew up in a city designed in 1913 (and whose oldest building dates to 1833) that I am now surrounded by hundreds of buildings built more than 500 years ago. This may also include part of our house.

Because there are so many old buildings we are constantly stopping to investigate and photograph places we catch glimpses of. But also because they are so common they may be relatively undervalued locally as historic structures, and information about them may not be easy to find.

Take, for instance, the farm of Pouillé, near Tournan Saint Pierre. I first saw last year it as I cycled past with TimB, who pointed it out. I was surprised, because I'm pretty certain I had been down that road before but never noticed it. A couple of weeks ago Susan and I drove past, and this time I remembered to stop and take photos.

This is all I have managed to find out. It's from the lieux dits de touraine blog, translated from french.

"The Grand-Pouillé private farm, a former noble residence dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, is built of Brenne sandstone (or grison). It has a massive circular tower housing a stone staircase. The entrance door features a pointed arch and jambs adorned with prismatic mouldings. Inside, in the corridor, we can see a fragment of the mantelpiece of a fireplace that has been cut through by a partition. A very splayed loophole illuminates a vast cellar. The lower part of the gate's pillars is decorated with lozenges. This place was a fief under the barony of Preuilly. Its earliest known owner was Jean de Chauvigny. He was succeeded by the d'Aloigny du Poitou family."

A Wedding in Vouvray

Our friend Laetitia got married on Saturday. She asked if she could be driven in Claudette from the wedding celebration venue Domaine de la Roderie to the annexe of the Town Hall in Vouvray where the official wedding was taking place. After that we all went back to la Roderie for drinks and another, private, exchange of vows and the speeches. Finally there would have been a meal, but we didn't stay for that. Driving a Traction Avant at night in the rain is not an enjoyable experience, so we left at dusk to get Claudette back into her garage before dark.

 

Tables set for the reception.

The first photo of the bride was taken by me, as by the time she emerged at la Roderie the photographer had left for the town hall,

Laetitia seated in Claudette.

Wedding guests clustering around the entrance to the Auchan supermarket carpark, opposite the annexe to the Vouvray town hall where the wedding would take place. It looked like we were waiting to start a manif (street demonstration).

Claudette arriving at Vouvray town hall annex, driven by Simon and carrying Laetitia, her mum and her best friend.

The newlyweds and their parents (and nephew). At the end of the official ceremony the mayor chipped them for having just moved from Vouvray to Montlouis, the rival wine town on the opposite bank of the Loire!

The Mums have a word.

We were served mulled cider and hot chocolate under an awning at la Roderie while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive after a photo session in Vouvray.

The second ceremony, in the barn at la Roderie. Guests were given fleece blankets.

One got a good view of the 17th century barn roof construction.

Domaine de la Roderie https://www.laroderie.com/

A Spot of Birdwatching in the Brenne

A couple of weeks ago Ingrid and I were early for a rendez-vous with a botanist in the Brenne so we opted for a spot of birdwatching from the Etang Purais hide [link]. It's the biggest hide in the LPO Chérine Reserve, but on a dull summer morning we had it all to ourselves.

The Etang Purais, near Lingé in the Brenne, Indre.

A pair of Mute Swans (Fr. les Cygnes tuberculés) take off.

A Mute Swan taking off.

Eurasian Coots (Fr. les Foulques macroules) obligingly perch on the artfully placed fallen tree that is right in front of the hide so that birdwatchers can get a good view of anything using it.

Mute Swan.

Red-crested Pochards (Fr. les Nettes rousses) in non-breeding plumage. In the past 50 years the Brenne has become a significant breeding location for this species of diving duck.

Mute Swan.

A Whiskered Tern (Fr. Guifette moustac) preens on a post. Etang Purais is one of their most important breeding sites in France, where they nest on the floating water lily leaves.

Info board in the carpark at the Etang Purais.

A flying flock of Ouessant sheep, an ancient breed from Brittany, being used for conservation grazing, a technique for maintaining the reserve.

Inside the hide. There are a number of nice paintings of different bird species on the walls.

Strawberry Clover

Valérie showed me a species of clover that was new to me the other day, in the field we crossed to get to the Etang Purais. It was Strawberry Clover Trifolium fragiferum (Fr. Trèfle à fraises). 

This little clover takes its name from its large pink fruits, which, with a little imagination, resemble strawberries. It's a creeping plant with a stem rooted at the nodes. Its stems and petioles are hairy. It can be found in lawns and along roadsides. Wet pasture such as where we found it in the Brenne is a typical habitat for the species.

It is uncommon enough to be a ZNIEFF determinant species (so it is a sign of good biodiversity on a site with scientific interest).

Collecting Tiny Flies in the Brenne

For more than 20 years I have been in touch on and off with Professor Valery Korneyev, a Ukrainian entomologist now living in exile in Berlin. For some years he has been reviewing various genera of fruit flies Tephritidae and this year I was lucky enough to be in a position where I could help a bit with his research. These days, by the way, he is funded by the Humboldt Foundation Researchers at Risk fund at the Natural History Museum of Berlin. Back in Ukraine he is Collections Manager and Head of Entomology for the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv.

 

Valery posing with the postcard I sent him.

Photo courtesy of Professor Valery Korneyev.

He wanted specimens of a tiny fly called Myopites blotii from France, preferably as close to Paris as possible. The fly causes galls in Common Fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica, so the easiest way to find the flies is to find a patch of fleabane.

 

Me checking fleabane flowers for galls in the field.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

I enlisted my botanist contact Valérie Lagny to find a suitable location and she picked the Etang Purais, part of the LPO Chérine Reserve in the Brenne. This meant that if we wanted to take samples we would need permission, but it was for a good cause, so it was just a question of asking.

 

Me pooting flies. My pooter uses the venturi principle, so I blow in it and it sucks up tiny insects. It was made for me by my friend Paul.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

On the day we had arranged to do the field work the weather was distinctly iffy, trying to rain all morning. Valérie took me to a nice big patch of fleabane and I set to work. The flies were not super abundant, but there were enough that I managed to collect 12 for Valery. I was impressed at how good Valérie had got at spotting the flies since they aren't in her normal line of work. My friend Ingrid, who is a Dutch nature guide and one of my swimming buddies, had also accompanied us and spent the morning practicing with her new camera. 

 

Me on site at the Etang Purais. The fleabane is the yellow flowered plant.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Once home I put half the flies in alcohol to preserve them and the others in the freezer. Once I was ready to send them to Valery the frozen flies got gently transferred to kitchen paper impregnated with a little alcohol, then slid into a small box supplied by my friend Tim. Everything was labelled appropriately to show species name, date caught, location caught and who caught them.

 

Entomologists often stick their heads in their nets. It's a good way of seeing what you've got whilst blocking escape.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Everything was put into a snaplock bag then into a cardboard box sealed with lots of tape, along with a covering note on a postcard I'd picked up at the Polish Institute in Brussels in March. It seemed like the perfect moment to use it.

 

Myopites blotii on Common Fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica at the Etang Purais, Indre.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

I posted the box to Valery in Berlin and he got it in two days. He says the flies arrived in good condition and he is really happy. I'm pleased. Valérie and I are now awaiting his scientific note on the species with interest.

 

Some of the specimens of Myopites blotii I collected for Valery. They are about 3 mm long.

Surveying Fleabanes

Myopites blotii [photo courtesy of Professor Valery Korneyev].

Earlier in the year my Ukrainian dipterist contact Valery Korneyev put out a call for help in collecting specimens of Common Fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica that had the galls of a Myopites sp fly on them. I offered try and find the plants, but wasn't really familiar with the species so I called for help in my turn. Valérie Lagny, an independent botanist working in the Brenne, came to my aid. She was surveying the Etang Purais on Friday 2 June and said I could tag along. She would show me the plant, which is abundant on the site.

Etang Purais from the south.

 

The Etang Purais is near Lingé, about 20 minutes from Preuilly. It's part of the Chérine Nature Reserve, run by the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO). When I arrived I was a bit surprised to see a coach parked at the entrance to the hide. It turned out that there was a school visit and the hide at Purais is the only one on the Reserve large enough to accommodate a bus load of kids. I hoped the real birdwatchers in the carpark were not too put out.

Valérie L and Thibault walking through the site.

 

Valérie L was waiting for me in the carpark, munching on a banana. She suggested we move on to a small farm on the other side of the étang, where the public is not allowed to go. Then her colleague Thibault, one of the Reserve ecologists, turned up and we set off through the long grass to count orchids, check rare species of flora and familiarise me with fleabane. It took us 3 hours to do 3 kilometres.

Cretan Soldier Bug Spilostethus saxatilis (Fr. Punaise rouge à damier) on Cytisus lotoides (Fr. Cytise couché), a rare plant that favours calcareous soil.

 

There was lots of fleabane, but no sign of the flies I was looking for, nor the galls they make. It was clearly too early in the season, so I will have to ask permission to go back in late July or early August, when the plants are flowering and the flies are on the wing.

Common Fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica (Fr. Pulicaire dysentérique).

 

Professor Valery K is the Head of Entomology at the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of the
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, but currently living as a displaced person in Berlin. I have never met him in person, but we've known each other online for nigh on two decades and we are the same age. He and his project to review the genus Myopites are being supported by the Humboldt Foundation Researchers at Risk fund. The Myopites fly is tiny, just a few millimetres long, and the galls they make even tinier.

The largest European Buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica (Fr. Nerprun purgatif) I have ever seen. Normally they are just a bush, not a small tree.

Yellow Iris Iris pseudacorus (Fr. Iris des marais).

Gratiole Gratiola officinalis (Fr. Gratiole officinale), one of the rare plants on the reserve.

Silverweed Potentilla anserina (Fr. Potentille ansérine).

Valérie L making field notes, surrounded by Meadow Thistle Cirsium dissectum (Fr. Cirse découpé).

Marsh Pennywort Hydrocotyle vulgaris (Fr. Hydrocotyle vulgaire).

How Are Farmers are Coping in the Drought in the Loire Valley?

Local goats cheese producers are struggling to feed their herds. In order to retain their AOC certification for specific cheeses produced in specific locations they need to feed the goats with locally produced hay. 

Dairy goats.

A herd of five hundred goats will eat 900 kilograms of hay per day plus a bit of silage. This year farmers have only been able to cut half the quantity of hay that they would normally be able to produce. They are using stocks from last year, but if 2023 isn't a normal year they will not be able to replenish their stocks.

Dairy goats.

In the heat the goats suffer from a lack of appetite so they eat less and produce less milk. Normally each goat gives 3.5 litres of milk per day. At the moment the average is barely 3 litres per goat per day. 

Canola crop in the Claise Valley in April.

Farmers report that their winter cereal harvest (that's wheat, barley, and canola) was 30 percent down. The spring sunflower yield will be 50 percent of normal and they are expecting maize to be 70 percent of normal. Many farmers do not irrigate as they have calcareous clay soils that don't require it (they may look dry on the surface, but retain a lot of water in the soil). Last year there was a bumper crop, this year over all will be just over half of last year. Rainfall has been half that required. Many farmers have come to the conclusion that maize is too water greedy to continue with in the Loire Valley.

Sunflowers in the Claise Valley.

Some farmers are struggling to work out from the officially issued regulations if they are still allowed to irrigate. Those farmers who have their own dams can still irrigate, which the general public doesn't always realise. 

Barley crop in the Vienne Valley.

 

Four hundred of the 1500 cereal growers in Indre et Loire irrigate as normal practice. There are 240 other farms which irrigate, mainly for growing forage (for example, dairy farmers, but market gardens and nurseries are also included in this category of farms not primarily growing cereals). 

Dry dam (étang).

 

Only seed maize needs to be irrigated now, this late in the season. That's a hundred farms in a total of 3000 farms of all categories in the Touraine. Farmers take the view that it is not the current irrigation that is causing a lack of water, it is the lack of rain in September 2021.

Wheat being irrigated in late March in the Creuse Valley, where the soil is sandy.