Good morning, chaffinch

I related on another blog how, when we were in France back in May, a hoopoe in the nearby trees spent all day every day calling his monotonous 'poop poop poop'. With the good weather we had then we left all the windows wide open during the day and even though the bird could have been as much as 100 yards away, we could still hear him even indoors. 'Poop, poop, poop.' Yet we caught not a glimpse of him all week.

By the time we returned exactly two weeks ago today, the hoopoe had moved on. But a chaffinch had taken his place. Granted, the song of the chaffinch is a little more melodious than the hoopoe's 'poop, poop, poop', and is distinctly more melodious than the town band from Pouancé or a caravan of heavy lorries, but it can become a little wearing when the bird sits on the electricity wires above the courtyard and insists on repeating his song from dawn till dusk. When I woke in the mornings I could hear him even before I opened the shutters (it was too hot to close the windows at night) and he continued until it was too dark for him to read his music. No, that's not strictly true: there was one day when he broke off for lunch and we had the relief of sitting under the wisteria to eat our lunch in blessed silence.

I did try shooting the wretched bird, but, close as he was, he was just too far away for the picture to come out well.



If you don't know the song of the chaffinch, try visiting this site.