France Day 8: The Brenne & Melody Show

Went for a walk round one of the Etangs in the south of The Brenne park today which was rather pleasant. First off we sat in a hide and saw several Black-winged Stilts, Cattle Egret and heard a few Savi's Warblers but  the main attraction here (for me at least) was the numerous Whiskered Terns in full breeding plumage flying about the place, often coming really close to the hide, they were very vocal too. Noticed that there was one Little Tern sat on the fence posts with them too. There was loads of Grey Heron about and 2 Purple Herons too. A few ducks were on the water, mainly Pochard, with several Mallard, Gadwall and a single male Teal. Also had Little Ringed Plover and Lapwing here. This looked a very interesting place so may try and get back early one morning.

View of the Etang

After a short while in the hide we then went for quite a long walk around the lake and through some countryside where there was quite a lot of Black Kite (including 2 that sat in a tree as we walked past - phone picture of one below), one Honey Buzzard and dozens of Common Buzzard about too.

 Black Kite (phone-scoped)

Black Kite (phone-scoped) - it'd just coughed up a pellet

Several passerines were seen/heard including Savi's, Melodious, Sedge, Wood and Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, CommonWhitethroat, and Nightingale. There was plenty of Stonechat and at least 5 Red-backed Shrikes, Common and Black Redstart, Tree Pipit, Woodlark, Skylark and (quite a few) Golden Oriole. Several Hoopoe flew around and there seemed to be Cuckoos everywhere.

After our walk we went briefly to the reserve base where we had a picnic lunch by the pond, here 2 Black Kite, and 2 Short-toed Eagles showed well, though with it being Sunday it was fairly busy with tourists/locals so we decided to make the most of the sun and head back to the Gite.

Late afternoon mainly involved watching the IPL final, though the result didn't go my way unfortunately. I did manage to find plenty of Short-toed Treecreeper, Nuthatch and a (the) pair of Spotted Flycatcher and a single Firecrest in the garden to keep me occupied. There was also a family party of fledgling Blue Tit which were very loud.

Highlight however was not a particularly rare bird, but just a great view of a singing male Melodious Warbler. Readers of my blog (and Dave in particularly) will know that I (we) put in hours (OK days) trying to connect with one when we were on the Scillies last Autumn (they're rare-ish in the North of England!). We eventually gained a few second glimpse of it at some ridiculous range! So I'm enjoying being able to watch these Melodious Warblers here so much. I took the following series of photos this afternoon on my phone. Light was quite bright but you get the idea.

 Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped)

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped) 

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped) 

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped) 

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped) 

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped)