4th Dec 1988 - St Denis du Payre

The meadow of St Denis du Payre has never been ploughed, nor have fertil­isers or herbicides been used. It is, however, a man‑made ecosystem, being reclaimed land. It is marshy and badly drained in places, and often flooded in winter, yet it is traditionally used for cattle grazing and this has probably helped to maintain its value as a habitat for breeding waders. It is also of botanic inter­est, being one of the few places in western France where the butterfly iris is found – but not at this time of year!

The meadow has been isolated from the sur­round­ing improved farmland, and its water table carefully controlled so that there is a large shallow lake in winter which slowly dries out during the summer. Today there are a dozen greylag geese and half as many mute swans on the lake. It is open to the public daily in July and August. We park outside the locked gate and have lunch.

A brown bunting lands on the fence nearby then flies to the ground to feed. A few minutes later it is joined by another similar bird. The first bird is quite pale and broadly streaked, with a pale crown stripe and pale brown legs. The other bird is also streaked, but gen­erally a darker, more chestnut colour, with a narrower supercilium and orangy-red legs. Both birds suddenly fly off, and do not return; we walk along the road in an unsuccessful search for them.

We debate their identity for some time. The second bird is probably a female reed bunting except that its legs are much paler than shown in the field-guide. The other bird is more of a mys­tery: the pale crown stripe suggests immature lapland bunting ‑ we were told the other day that there was a lapland bunting in the area a few days ago ‑ but the book shows lapland as having even darker legs than reed bunting. Perhaps it is a leucistic reed bunting. The observation high­lights how little we know about reed buntings, at home they are the main black-headed type bunting and their identifi­cation is taken almost for granted.

Raptors are well represented in the general area, marsh harriers being outnumbered by hen har­riers, perhaps indicating the relative dryness of these marshes. Kestrels are in abundance ‑ scan­ning the distance with the telescope produces a hovering bird every few degrees. A buzzard soars over­head. We are packing up to leave when Jim catches sight of a distant bird with the angu­lar silhouette and buoyant, effort­less flight that is distinctive of a red kite.

In fact are two kites, so Jim watches one through the telescope while I keep an eye on the other with binoculars. The birds fly very slowly, bobbing up and down as if on elastic, and with wings and tail moving inde­pendently to catch every ounce of air to prevent them stalling at such low speeds. The one in the telescope flies towards us showing off its grey head and reddish plumage.

Every so often its underwings catch the sun, flashing the large white patch on the primaries. Less often it turns to show the broad pale crescent of its greater coverts con­trasting with the red body and forewings and darker primaries. The other bird makes faster prog­ress but keep lower over the ground, then it gains height and soars on a thermal showing slightly arched wings kinked at the carpel.

The red kite is considered to be one of the most accom­plished fliers amongst the raptors as it derives the lift for soaring not only from ther­mals over warm ground, but from rising air cur­rents over cool hilly terrain. Not surprisingly it is capable of hovering and is even agile enough to take birds in flight. More generally it finds its prey on open ground, where low veg­etation makes carrion and live prey more easily detectable from either high circling or low har­rier‑like quartering of the ground.