May 2022
As I write in April, I am in France and, surprisingly, dawn temperatures are several degrees below freezing. We are here to manage our project of experiencing rural living in France and its natural history. Our accommodation is a bergerie Landaise. This is a 300 year old shepherds dwelling surrounded by fields and trees. We live here with wildlife that you could expect in any good French nature reserve, including 3 species of owls (tawny, barn and little), a rare black-shouldered kite, stonechats, cirl buntings, European cranes flying over on migration, the occasional brown hare visiting our field, regular visits from the local stone marten (a kind of cat-sized weasel). We constantly have wall lizards in and around the house, and occasionally see our resident giant green lizard called Lacerta viridis.
One of my main jobs is to manage the grassland around the dwelling such that there is a diversity of habitats. To this end we mow some of the herbage and let large patches rewild to support the many insects that use the wildflowers that like to grow tall such as black knapweed and ox-eye daisy. The insects that we have here include praying mantids, and a range of large bush crickets and other singing insects that stridulate (sing) all night during the summer. Butterflies such as swallowtails and scarce swallowtails fly in the garden on warm days and use the wild fennel plants to lay their eggs on and feed the hatching caterpillars.
We are regularly visited by the local western whip snake which is about 1 metre long and sometimes shelters in the house. We had a peacock butterfly hibernating in our bedroom for the winter hanging underneath a large oak beam. In 2019, a colony of honeybees moved into the attic but were apparently wiped out by hornets (Asian and European) leaving 14 kilos of honey and useful beeswax for us to harvest. We also get visits from green patterned marbled newts and hear the tree frogs croaking.
Currently, as mentioned, we are experiencing an unusually cold spell, and most of the wild animals are still and silent. However, the lizards occasionally emerge to warm up when the sun shines. We have also seen carpenter bees collecting nectar from the few flowers in bloom.