55.

May 1st.

On May 1st. I hear Bee eaters lirrupping high overhead. A gorgeous sound; the harbingers of the real summer weather. The nightingales are quieter this year. What does that mean?

As I am coming down the lane from the hills a male cuckoo keeps flying off the telegraph wire ahead of me and moving further down. His tail fans as he leaves the wire. Finally he dives into the valley, twirls a bit and disappears into a copse from where his bell like call rises up to me . It has been a morning of sights, as on my walk, about an hour ago, a stone marten crossed my path with a limp rabbit in its mouth. It hauled it up an ash tree, only meters away from me and languidly lying across a fork, rabbit still held, it watched me pass. I couldn’t resist stopping, of course, and it still watched. I moved off and then looked back . It was gone. It is these moments that I wish I carried a camera or camera phone as well as my heavy binoculars. But I don’t and probably won’t.

This afternoon, in the windy sunshine, I'm mowing the grass and for sure I can hear Emile singing above the motor noise. He is tinkering with the small, yellow tractor and he is singing loudly and pretty tunelessly in Occitaine, but it’s the first I've heard.