A few Bird Notes from Southern Provence. 139


cork trees, and in the brushwood below them a little flock of Golden-

crested Wrens were flitting about from twig to twig, seeking a

resting-place after their long migratory flight. I pointed them out

to our Provengal coachman, and his remark was truly characteristic,

“ Oui, oui, Miladi, ils sont tres gentils et ils sont tr&s bons ‘ k la

broche ’ ? ”


Some few years ago an excellent law was passed in France,

which to some extent protects small birds; so that now, even in

Southern Provence,there is a “close time” for “petit gibier.” Already

there is a marked difference in the larger number of birds found in this

neighbourhood. We also protect our own birds as much as possible

by putting up boards with “chasse gardee ” in all out-of-the-way

places, and we rarely hear a shot fired or meet a bird-catcher on our

land. In this rather lonely neighbourhood there are numbers of

birds to delight us “ with gay plumage and merry song.” Provence

can show many rare and interesting specimens to the bird-lover,

wFo looks about him with seeing eyes.


On the hill-sides, clothed with evergreens and aromatic

shrubs and endless flowers, there is plenty of bird-life. Among the

groves of olives, and in the branches of wide-spreading “ umbrella ”

(stone) pines, and in the vast forests of “ Maritima” and “ Alleppo ”

pines, that cover the Esterels, in the wild summits and rich valleys

of the Maures, where Spanish chestnut and other deciduous trees

grow, and where the cork, the ilex, and the vine flourish, there

birds are also to be found ; by the rocky, ferny banks of little

streams, or by the reed-fringed rivers and in marshy estuaries, indeed

everywhere from the seashore to the far-off Basse Alpes there are

birds. Here in the mountains the Golden Eagle may be seen soaring

far up in the blue sky, and I believe Bonelli’s and the Short-toed

Eagle, and the Booted Eagle may also be found, though I have not

heard of their being identified.


In the shady ravines of the fir-clad Esterels, the big “ Grand

Due ” Owl blinks by day and hunts by night. The peasants say he

can see by daylight quite as well as in the dark. The Wood Owl,

large and fluffy, is occasionally seen, and the knowing looking Long¬

eared Owl builds in old hollow cork trees, or often in some disused

remains of a Magpie’s nest, returning year after year to the same



