Red flowers under blue(ish) skies

I don't know about you, but I'm slightly château'd and churched out. The weather has suddenly turned spring-like, qand as they keep saying on the TéléMatin weather reports, le printemps est arrivé. It would be about time. Maybe I'll come back from the past and live in the present for a while.

We slept with a window open last night. Walt got up early and said a cuckoo bird was perched in the top
of a tall tree in our yard and was making so much noise that it was impossible to sleep.

These pretty peonies — pivoines [pee-'vwahn] — were growing in the back yard when we came to live here
18 years ago. They're still going strong. I took these photos yesterday morning.

I just looked back through the blog and I see that the pivoines were in full bloom like this at the beginning of May
in 2006 and 2007. I remember that we had a very warm and sunny months of April in those years.
In other years, they've usually bloomed toward the end of May, as now.

Our skies are at least partly blue right now. High temperatures are in the low to mid-70s in ºF.

The roses in the photos above and below grow in our part-time neighbor's yard. She's been having a lot of work done on her house and we're wondering whether she's fixing it up for herself and her family or whether she might be getting ready to sell it. She lives in the Paris suburbs and has hardly been down here at all since the pandemic started. She's about my age (early 70s).

The birds are back

Over the past week or so, I've been noticing a lot of loud birdsong when I go out for walks with Tasha the Sheltie, especially early in the morning. Yesterday I opened the kitchen window at about 7:00 a.m. to checke if it was raining and again was struck by how melodious all the loud chirping was. Here's a brief sample — you'll need the sound on your device or computer turned on to hear it of course. Birdsong only and some woodpecker hammering, that's all you'll hear.

As far as I know, Blogger doesn't "host" audio files, so I took a movie. Not much action, but a good bit of noise. The one bird I didn't catch on this video is the cuckoo, which has come back from Africa... more than one of them, of course. Often, there's one sitting in the top of our big cedar tree cuckoo-ing its lungs out this time of year. Here are some posts about cuckoo birds, and one includes a short video on which you can hear the cuckoo's call.

Three photos from yesterday morning

I was out with Callie and the camera yesterday morning. Here are three things I saw.

The first thing I noticed, as I headed out the back door, was the cuckoo. It was cuckooing loudly, and it was perched in one of its favorite spots in the area — at the top of the tallest tree around, which happens to be in our yard. People say you hear the cuckoo all the time in spring, but that you seldom if ever see one. I see this one fairly often, but from afar.

The second thing I noticed was weird clouds in the northern sky. They looked like they could have been condensation trails left by jets flying over, but I don't really think that's what they were. They blew away fairly quickly, because it was a windy morning.

And finally, I saw a new view of the vineyard. Usually I see the vines spread out ahead of me like a carpet or blanket. But this time I noticed a hole in the woods that grow along a water course in a low area. Through the hole, I could see a patch of vines that are turning greener and greener with each passing day.

J'ai vu le coucou

Jean-Claude Chantelat writes in his book Les Oiseaux de France (2003):

« On connaît son chant, si caractérisque au printemps, et ses mœurs particulières... Mais combien d'observateurs ont vu le coucou gris ? » — ["We know its call, so characteristic in springtime, and its unusual behaviors... But how many bird-watchers have actually seen a cuckoo bird?"]

Well, I have. We have a cuckoo in the area that likes to perch at the very top of the big Himalayan cedar in our yard and do its cuckooing call these spring mornings. And now that we have our loft and can get to the upper-story windows to look out, I can actually see the cuckoo. That's « le coucou » in French.

The cuckoo perched in the top of our tall cedar tree
(sorry I couldn't get a better picture)

If you've ever heard a cuckoo clock "chime" the hour, you know what the cuckoo sounds like. In fact, when we first moved here, a friend came from the western U.S. for a visit. The first morning she was here, she emerged from the guest bedroom at an early hour and requested that we turn off the cuckoo clock so that she might sleep a little later the next day. We told her that we didn't have a cuckoo clock, but an actual cuckoo bird, and there wasn't much we could do about the loud cuckooing.

Another book we have, The New Birdwatcher's Pocket Guide to Britain and Europe, calls the cuckoo bird a "familiar disembodied voice." The cuckooing in Europe starts in April, when the birds return from their winter territories in southeastern Africa. The cuckoos fly back down there in July or August. We only hear them cuckooing from April through June. If you don't want to be awakened by them early in the morning, don't come to Saint-Aignan in springtime.

Still another bird book on the shelf, the Collins New Generation Guide: Birds of Britain and Europe, says that the female cuckoo lays 25 eggs per season. That would be a lot of eggs in one nest, but no problem, of course. The cuckoo never builds one. She just lays each egg in the nest of other birds, after pushing out the eggs she finds there. The other birds hatch her egg and feed her little one until it fledges and then flies back to Africa.

Coucou !

A lot of people who come to visit us, and not just Americans, tell me they have never heard the cuckoo bird before — « le coucou » in French. Here's a video from early May in which you can hear the cuckoo cuckooing in the background.



The coucous arrive in the Saint-Aignan area in April and fly back to Africa in July. They say the arrival of the swallows marks the beginning of spring, but for us it's the arrival of the cuckoo birds.

Nicest day yet

Yesterday was like a summer vacation. The temperature was the highest we've had yet (about 22ºC out in the garden), and the air stayed warm well into the evening. We were able to sit out on the front deck and enjoy listening to the birds singing until dark.

A merle singing in the maple tree out front

The blackbirds (merles) were especially vocal last night, and I really enjoy listening to their songs. There was a cuckoo off in the distance too, and a multitude of smaller birds.

During the afternoon, I transplanted some thyme plants and a lot of lilies of the valley (muguets in French). All were in planter boxes and now they are in the ground. In one of the planter boxes, I sowed green onion seeds. The other will have oregano and basil planted in it when the weather gets a little bit warmer. The other day I planted chive seeds in another planter box.

A big bird out in the vineyard

The other day out in the vineyard, I notice a big bird of prey sitting on a post off in the distance. I didn't get very close before it slowly flew away, disappearing into the woods. I wondered what prey it was observing or looking for.

And a raven

A big raven (I think these are ravens, not crows) was sitting on another post, not far away, also observing the hawk, I think. It flew on off when the bigger bird moved away.

Last night it rained. The grass is really going to start growing now. April showers... it's still raining this morning and the temperature is down to 10ºC.

Le retour du coucou

The cuckoo bird is back. I say that in the singular because so far I've heard only one. He cuckooed three or four times early yesterday morning when I was out on my walk with Callie. I cuckooed back at him, and I think I scared him away. (No wisecracks...)

The cuckoos come back to our part of France in late March or early April. They spend the winter in southern Africa, and they return there in July or August every year.

The Peterson Field Guide includes drawings like these.

In French the cuckoo is le coucou. Les coucous seem to like to sit in the very tops of tall trees and call and call and call. If you let it, it can drive you, well, coucou. (When you look at the word, you wonder if coucous would thrive on a diet of couscous. Again, no wisecracks please...)

From the description in the Peterson Field Guide, the bird we hear in Saint-Aignan is Cuculus canorus — le coucou gris, or gray cuckoo, in French. Peterson describes the call as a "mellow, penetrating cuc-coo, sometimes single or treble notes..."

Male and some female cuckoos are gray-black.
Les Oiseaux de France features photos like this one...

Have I mentioned this before? A few years ago we had an old friend visiting from the U.S. in April. The first morning, she asked us if we could turn off the cuckoo clock while she was here because she wanted to sleep in a little later. We explained that it wasn't a clock, but a real live bird in the tree outside her window.

The French book titled Les Oiseaux de France (Jean-Claude Chantelat — appropriate name) says that it is rare to see a cuckoo. They are pretty shy around people. But I have seen one, I know. It used to perch in the big cedar tree hear the northwest corner of hour house. That's the tallest tree in the area, and I heard and saw the bird cuckooing up there a few years ago in springtime.

...and this one. If you see a reddish cuckoo,
don't be surprised. It'll be a female.

The cuckoo's most famous trait is that it lays its eggs in other birds' nests. Cuckoos lay eggs of different colors and seem to spread them around, one each among some other bird's eggs. The cuckoo supposedly removes an egg from the nest so that its egg will pass unnoticed. The cuckoo egg hatches first, and the cuckoo chick then pushes all the other eggs out of the nest so that it will get all the food brought by the parents. It's not a pretty story.

In the same book, Monsieur Chantelat says the cuckoo is the only bird that feeds on the obnoxious caterpillars called chenilles processionnaires. These processionary caterpillars resemble the tent caterpillars we have in the U.S. South, but I think they are different species. They are destructive to trees and poisonous to people.

So I hope there are a lot of hungry cuckoos this year — my sincere apologies to the birds they take advantage of. We've seen caterpillar tents in a lot of the evergreen trees around La Renaudière recently, and Walt saw a procession of caterpillars marching across our road the other day. Eat'em up, cuckoos.

Last day of March

Another March passes into history. This one was typical: rainy, chilly, blustery. A lot of flowers are blooming but they are waiting in vain for some nice weather. It rained most of the day yesterday and came down steadily all afternoon. The grass is green and growing, that's for sure. On Saturday our neighbor came down from Blois and rode around on his riding mower for a few hours in the early afternoon. It was the first mowing. A few years ago he did the first mowing on February 24.

Several more red tulips have bloomed around the yard.

Saturday was the exceptional day, in fact. We were invited for apéritifs by some friends who live down in the village (he's French, she's English). We actually sat outside for about three hours at noontime and enjoyed a couple of glasses of Sauvignon and some finger food. The sun was warm, but when the random cloud went over we were glad to have our jackets on.

There's a bumblebee in one of the flowers here.

Our friends live across the street from the plumber who has done a lot of work for us over the last five years, Mr Rougemont. They are renovating a house on the main square in Saint-Aignan these days, and Rougemont is doing the plumbing work for them. We asked about him, since we haven't had occasion to call or see him in a while, and we especially asked about his wife, whose health had been iffy the last time we did talk to him.

These cowslips have just come up in the back yard.

Mme Rougemont worked in the offices of the real estate agency in Amboise that we used to find and buy our house here in Saint-Aignan. We first met her in 2002, and then when we bought the house we found out that she was one of our neighbors. The fact that her husband was a plumber was good news for us, because our house needed some upgrades in that area.

I saw three caterpillars like this one
out in the vineyard yesterday morning.

In 2005, Mr Rougement put in a new shower stall for us, turning our big bathroom into a much more usable room. Mme Rougemont came in one afternoon and helped him do part of the work. It was then that we found out she was being treated for cancer. And then on Saturday we found out from our friends that she had passed away about a year ago. We didn't know.

Mme Rougemont couldn't have been much more than 50 years old. She and her husband and daughter had moved to the Saint-Aignan area just a couple of years before we did. They said they were escaping the noise, crowds, and commuting stress of the northern Paris suburbs. Now Mr Rougemont is raising their teenage daughter alone.

Cowslips in French are coucous.

Other subjects: we changed our clocks yesterday and lost an hour of sleep. Now it stays light until about 8:30 p.m., but we have to get up in the semi-dark if we want to walk the dog at her ususal time, which is 8:00 a.m. That's especially the case on cloudy gray mornings. Callie woke me up at 7:00 this morning — she wanted to go out. So I groggily stumbled down the stairs and opened the back door for her. At least it wasn't raining.

Coucou ! Nous voilà !

Yesterday morning when I took Callie out for her walk the temperature was already over 50ºF. I had a face full of gnats and flies the whole time I was out there, so the insects are becoming active again. I saw bumblebees and big caterpillars. Oh, and the cuckoo birds are back too. They arrive here in late March or early April and migrate on to other regions at the end of June or beginning of July. You get used to hearing them cuckooing in the background for a few months.

What are these nice purple flowers, I wonder?

April 1 is tomorrow, and let's hope it's not just a bad joke. Last April turned off warm and sunny and dry. I'll take that kind of April again this year. Hope springs eternal.