Eagle owl

One was heard “singing” at 11pm on 22/12/01 in the valley to the south of our house. Considered to be a wandering individual, perhaps driven out of the surrounding hills in the exceptionally cold weather at that time. (see later notes on species occurring in the Parc). Amazing, I found a dead one on a dirt track a few hundred metres from our home, in November 2006. It was in good condition and appeared to be freshly dead, with no signs to indicate the cause of death. What it was doing it the vicinity of the village is a mystery, as the weather was exceptionally mild and there was no reason for it not to be in normal eagle owl habitat. Since then, I have been shown and seen, eagle owls at 2 sites, both within half an hour of Autignac, so perhaps the dead bird had not wandered too far.

Eleonora's Falcon

First found 16/06/08, sitting in a dead tree in the rain in the valley to the south of our house; in the absence of seeing it fly, I had to dismiss the bird as an unknown falcon, but suspected it could be a pale morph Eleonora's. Luckily, however, it turned up in the evening of 20th and I watched it hawking insects in the same valley for a good half hour, in amongst the local swifts. Wow, what a cracker! The lazy flight and flexible wingbeats and the way it spread it's tail when swooping up to catch insects, took me back to previous sightings I had had on Mediterranean holidays. A very small number of these impressive birds turn up annually at Gruissan, on the coast in late summer, but this bird was well outside the norm, and a superb addition to my village list! Incredibly, another turned up in the early evening of 20/09/09, a superb dark morph bird, which I watched from our terrace, for 15 minutes or so, interacting with local Kestrels and Jackdaws, before drifting off, west!

Eygptian Vulture

10am, 5/09/09, an adult drifted over our house, before briefly circling over the land to the south, then continuing to migrate southwards. Interesting to speculate where the bird had summered, perhaps the Camargue or the Cevennes? The ultimate prize!