Hello there
In the garden, this is the time for lots of the new young birds, which have left their nests. We’ve seen young goldfinches and greenfinches, as well as house sparrows and starlings. It’s lovely to see the youngsters 
clamouring for food from their hard worked parents. This scene will carry on for a month or two.
We recently took some visitors to Topsham, and walked round the Goat Walk, which skirts the estuary. Most of the Winter visitors 
(birds) have now gone back to their breeding grounds overseas, but there were a few black tailed godwits still about, together with the resident shelducks, mallards, herons,mute swans, etc. Lots of black headed gulls skwarking about, of course.
Since last month, we’ve been to The Cevennes area of France, for a week’s nature watching. The birding highlight was seeing a group of about forty griffon vultures soaring above us. These huge birds were, historically, fairly common in this remote 
area of France, but became extinct in the 18th Century, due to Man’s pressure. However, they were re-introduced from Spain about forty years ago, and there is now a thriving population. We also saw red backed shrikes, which are now extinct in the UK., plus tree pipits, dippers, yellow wagtails, a red kite, a black kite and many other good birds. The wild flowers were superb and the butterflies pretty good too.
The last twice I’ve walked up the lane, I’ve seen a painted lady butterfly. About ten years ago, we had a huge influx of these pretty black and orange butterflies in the UK. They were blown here from North Africa on the warm southerly winds. I understand that this might happen again this Summer!
Alan
