Saturday we took the relatively short drive into La Brenne, locally known as 'The Land of a Thousands Lakes'. Starting off at Etang De La Sous the walk to the hide always produces and by the time we'd settled the usual Great White Egrets, Cattle Egrets and odd Little Egret were noted.
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| Great White Egret - Plentiful in 'The Land of a Thousand Lakes' - Image by Dee |
The surrounding marshland was awash with Stonechat and the treeline held Chifchaff, Blackcap and the odd Willow Warbler. Butterflies were still on the wing and included Common Blue, Clouded Yellow and Wall Brown. Immediately on arrival a Purple Heron could be seen flying low over the reedbed in the distance but this was as good as it got, with the only other species of note: Cetti's Warbler, Great-crested Grebe, Cormorant and a Coypu!
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| Coypu makes a dart for it - Image by Dee |
Next stop the hide at Etang Ricot, always a favourite of mine as the short walk to the hide is through a wood. Here at least three Marsh Tit were calling, finally locating one high in the oak and a second call was undoubtedly that of a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, which sadly we never connected with. The usual woodland species were all located: Short-toed Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Pied Flycatcher and Spotted Flycatcher. The best from the hide was a performing Kingfisher, which the obsessives back at Brandon would have enjoyed!
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| Kingfisher at Etang Ricot |
The remainder of our stay visiting a few other hides and locations proved reasonably fruitful with Black Kite, Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier and Montague's Harrier plus other species of note: Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, Mistle Thrush, Red-legged Partridge, Common Redstart, Teal, Shoveler, Little Grebe, Gadwall and Snipe. Kestrels were abundant!
