More from Champagne

Still stupidly busy at work right now, but here’s a few more photos – need to get these posted before heading off again! First, some birds…

Great White Egrets were relatively abundant – we saw 50+ at one point on Lac du Der, and flocks of over 200 have been noted in the last couple of years. Coming soon to marshes in southern England?

Middle-spotted Woodpecker – none showed well enough for good photos, but several gave excellent scope views.

The local Buzzards were quite freaky – most birds were VERY pale, with distinctly gingery colouration (at times recalling Long-legged Buzzard). Some had almost no carpal patch on the underwing, and several had a large white base to the tail – beware any claims of Rough-legged Buzzard… One also had large white panels on the upperwing, rather like pale phase Booted Eagle!

The woodland around Lac du Der and in Foret d’Orient held all of western Europe’s tit species – it was fantastic to see plenty of Willow Tits (shown above), and hear both these and Marsh Tit in song. Crested Tit was also pretty common, in mixed woodland, rather than the exclusively Scots Pine forest where I’m used to seeing them.

And now, a little scenery…

And finally a mammal challenge: what’s this? I’m actually not sure – choice of two species, despite the name of the image file!