A few Bird Notes from Southern Provence. 141


They may be seen constantly fluttering among the trees, or strutting

along the terrace walls of vine and olive yards, peeping into every

nook and corner in their inquisitive fussy way.


Among the elms and ilex that border the streams, and in

shady clumps in the plain and lower hillsides, a sweet song and a

flash of orange colour will betray the presence of the Golden Oriole,

who comes early and stays late, often from March to October if the

season is mild. Rather late in the afternoon, in the middle of May,

if you follow the road across the plain from Fregus to Les Arcs, at a

certain bend of the road, where the telegraph wires take a short cut

across a stretch of scanty grass-land, you will find the first flock of

bee-eaters, arrived from Africa for their summer season in Provence,

—a string of exquisite yellow and green jewels do they seem as they

sit on the wire ; or more lovely still as the sunlight catches the

emerald sheen on their backs as they hover and dart at some passing

insect. Various sections of this same wire are popular with the

flycatchers, too ; both the Common and the Pied Flycatchers are

met with in Provence.


Among the low bushes that in places border the field paths

and vineyards, the common Wren is nearly always to be found, I

think all the year round. I have seen them in seasons as far divided

as December, June, and September. The Golden-crested Wrens I

mentioned before are very numerous sometimes in October and again

in the late Spring. They seem to collect here before migration.

I counted as many as twenty-two one afternoon during a short

walk. There are numerous Tits, including some that are rare.

Perhaps the most interesting is the Penduline Tit, or ‘ Mesange de

Narbonne.’ It is a very pretty little bird with a whitish head and

red-brown body, black cheeks and tail and dark brown wings. It

builds the most wonderful nest, a big round ball-like structure, which

it hangs on a branch, something after the manner of the Mocking

Birds. Mesanges are more plentiful in the Rhone Valley than in

this drier district, and I have never found a nest here.


The ‘ Continental ’ Coal Tits are often seen; they differ

rather from the British species, the under parts being more buff all

over, and the two bars on the wings more distinctly white and the

back more slaty blue. The Great Tit and the Blue Tit are here,



