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Grus grus

Storm cleanup (now with added photos) was underway yesterday and the day was punctuated with several spectacular flybys of Cranes, en route from Africa to their summer breeding grounds in Scandinavia and Russia.

cranes overhead

Clicky piccy for biggy silhouetty.

The migration route brings them past here for just one or two days a year. You can hear them coming first from a good 4/5km away – they soon come into sight and what a sight. A cluster of 30-50 at a time in a delta formation which they seem to break every few km, they then cluster and reform a new ‘V’ and off they go. Adult birds have a wingspan as much as 2.4M so they’re very large animals. Their flight over Europe is spectacular when you consider the distances involved. I shot a few silhouettes as they were flying at quite some altitude and the snap above is as close to overhead as they came when I had a camera at hand. My flickr photostream has a few more.

Tempête Xynthia

I very quickly wrote a few words about the upcoming storm on Saturday evening – we had every expectation that it would be severe but I don’t think quite anything really prepared us for what was about to unfold.

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Batten down the hatches

February, a funny month so far.  Recurrent snow and cold weather left us with little to do outdoors…. but we’ve not been idle!

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The last throes of winter.

Last night’s full moon was magical, it finally broke through clear after a few hours and everywhere was bathed in the brightest moonlight I’d seen in ages.  A quick peek out onto the terrace at 4:30 this morning and long shadows were being cast across the garden. Impressive.

Blue Moon 2

Up at 8am to a huge surprise as I find everywhere was 6cm deep in snow and it was still falling strongly! At last, a slice of wintry looking weather!

snow on the pine tree

Snowy branch

So, by the time we were fully fuelled up with coffee and marmalade toast it was off out to play in the snow.

Three sheep under an oak tree

Snowy Oak, home of the little owl

Goldfinch

Not a new bird exactly… but the very first time I’ve had a chance to snap one up close. A pair were happily feeding up and down the driveway for a good five minutes and I managed to take some pretty close up snaps of them doing their thing.

Goldfinch II

Goldfinch shot through glass II

Is it Spring yet?

Having been ensconced all Winter infront of the fire and TV I was beginning to wonder if Spring would ever arrive.  Temperatures have risen over the past few days to above 0 degrees and even the bathroom is a tropical 7 degrees today.

After finishing my daily chores of cleaning out the chicken coops and checking on their well being, I wandered around the garden to see what jobs I would be doing in the (hopefully) near future when spring has sprung and the weather has warmed up a little more.

Plenty of weeding and chopping down/back of overgrown bushes etc., digging over of new beds for new crops, removing dead plants and basically a spring clean around the garden.  The mole hills across the lawn will need to be levelled and hopefully our little kitteh will receive some moleing lessons from the neighbour’s cat and we  won’t be troubled by these little black beasts much longer.  She is already an expert on catching mice and other small rodents.

Just before returning back to the comfort of the warm lounge – what is this? – Oh JOY – my heart skipped a beat – a wonderful sight which raised my spirits and made me rush in to get my resident professional photographer.

Signs of Spring on its way !!

First snowdrops of the year

Coming up for air

The brutal cold spell that held much of Northern Europe in its grip for much of December and early January managed to reach down to Bellebouche for a few days so we had an excuse to enter deep hibernation with our tried and trusted survival strategy. It’s customary on these occasions to stock the woodburner full of oak, set a pan of slow-simmering stew atop and then run through the entire 86 episodes of the Sopranos boxset. Those winter nights fly by.

Xmas came and went with plenty of superb goodies. Our geese served up the highlight meals of the festive period and were just superb. More of the same next year. An insanely huuuge cast iron wok was something of a struggle to buy from a particularly belligerent source: Gamm Vert. Purchasing trauma aside it has been a triumph in combination with our electromagical induction hob. The very first time in sixteen years I’ve been able to properly stir-fry. It’s all about the power.

Further culinary(ish) shenanagins will abound later in the year because I also bought a 10Kw, three ring propane burner at the same time. I can stir-fry for a whole army with that, use my half metre paella pan without a big log fire and…make it the throbbing heart of a pico-braserrie. All blog material for 2010.

A superb new years evening spent with friends was a real triumph and a great thrill for everyone to get a little dressed up. There’s not much call for that normally so it was great. First time I’ve worn a tie in over a year.

Instead of hibernating by the fire all day I had a day out walking up at the Lac du Cebron. It was minus 3 at the warmest part of the day and so dark and grey there was very little to see or do, but with a little perseverance I turned up some interesting finds.

A world with no discernable colour

A frozen lake in January

I trekked to the part where last October we’d seen an Osprey fishing and found his feeding site, four piles of big fish remains, bones and scales was pretty much all that was left. The area where he feeds is out of bounds for five months during the breeding season so it’s a rare chance to spot this.

Scales and bones are the remains of an Ospreys lunch

Remains of an Ospreys lunch

Back to our birds, our last two hybrid coq’s are gone and we waived an adieu to them just after Xmas. We’ve pure bred Brahmas raised in October and we’re hoping to sell on the males. One female is spoken for with a neighbour and the two fluffy legged ladies will enter the Bellebouche breeding program with a fresh injection of new blood. All of the immature ladies that we’d brought on last year are now giving us eggs… tiny cute little ones.

A superb xmas gift of a camera radio trigger shows huge promise as I was able to take some cool snaps of the garden birds here .  It brings with it some real inspiration for more wildlife photos this year.

Great Tit

Great tit feeding on Bellebouche Bacon

Talking of xmas gifts,  Joan bought me Heston Blumenthals Fat Duck Cookbook. Three Michelin stars and one of the doyens of the molecular gastronomy world his book is a stunning read. Guests this year can look forward to (!) Sardines on Toast sorbet and the like. Bring it on 2010!

Joyeux Noël

A quick trip back to the UK and on our return we’re topped up with the gastronomic spoils of international travel. All the important stuff like Yorkshire tea, assorted bulk spices cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, turmeric so necessary for curries and erm, brewing! The comedic weight restrictions which are sometimes imposed by Ryanair (and often time completely ignored) meant that our pockets were stuffed with goodies when we flew back home and I can attest that a gilet can quite comfortably hold two 700g blocks of extra mature cheddar and a selection of crumbly tart Wensleydale and Cheshire for good measure! Interestingly the first flight I’ve ever been on where GSM mobile phones where allowed to be used officially. Strangely the aircraft didn’t plunge from the skies. Fancy that.

Good to spend time with our family and deliver a load of presents and pick up a few goodies (pork scratchings!) to bring back too.

Dead Donkey Cake

Rather pleasant slice of Bavarois with afternoon coffee!

My xmas porter has been bottle conditioning for ten days now and for good measure I set off a tenaciously spiced cider to ferment on the old lees. It’s bubbling away in the corner as I write. One more beer related post is in the wings for boxing day when I’ll report back on the beer of the year.

Tootling off around the shops today and they’re stocked up with Christmas goodies. Geese are in the shops at last and it’s the one time of year when you can buy them… if you’ve got deep pockets. Our pair would have cost > €100 to buy at todays prices in the shops so the economics of raising them is very rewarding. The shops are also full of Chapons. Castrated male birds are something I don’t think I’ve ever seen on sale in the UK but are a firm favourite here at xmas time. They’re expensive at €12/Kg but look magnificent in the stores.. something I may consider having a go at next year if I can pluck up the courage – the castration is not without some small risk to the bird but after his cacahuettes are gone he no longer has to worry about fighting, chasing ladies or having sex… just eating! We’ve two more cockerels to bid adieu to between Christmas and New Year so that will round out the poultry raising year nicely. In just a few short weeks we’ll be planning hatching some more!

Speaking of  le shopping, things which all year round are normally very reasonably priced seem to have shot up with huitres and crevettes doubling in price since last week. Normal service will resume in a fortnight no doubt.

I’d set myself a little personal challenge of trying to take a photo-a-day for December and it’s been fun so far, managed to turn in some of the best images of the year as a result. I’ll revisit photos early next year but for now, here’s a slideshow of my Advent 2009 set from flickr.

That’s it for now. I’ve got a slice of cake to polish off – much better to eat these things than take photos of them! Chestnuts are roasting on the fire… we’ve a never ending supply of eggs of course so I’ll be making a batch of egg nog later on and then we’re bunkering down for a good week or so for our very own French xmas. Compliments of the season to you all.

Bit of a nip in the air

Bit of a nip in the air this morning!

Bit of a nip in the air this morning!

So, I got fully cladded up like a polar explorer at half three this morning to go and check on our latest batch of chicks. We’d only hatched them at the end of September and I had visions of seeing them in a Bernard Mathews state. I needn’t have worried, they were out prancing around their cage digging in the snow like it was the most natural thing in the world. Hardy stuff.

Far more hardy than me.. back to bed with a mug of chocolat chaud

Look out, look up!

Here’s hoping that wherever you are… over the evenings this coming weekend… I hope you have clear skies and have an opportunity to have a look up.

The annual Geminid Meteor Shower is upon us with a good chance of a peak of 100 meteors an hour over the evenings of the 12th, 13th and 14th December - all the more visible as there’s no moon  to speak of that weekend.

I’d had a bit of a hoot this year so far spotting the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers and look forward to these.

The splendid chaps of  Newbury Astronomical Society have put together an excellent teaser trailer.

For those that tweet it’ll all  be on twitter as it unfolds