French wildlife and beekeeping

  Being both a bit of a naturalist and a bee keeper people sometimes contact me to remove honey bee colonies that have been constructed between closed shutters and the window. This is an ideal space and a fairly common occurrence in France with second homes that are left empty during the swarming season and only discovered when the owners return to their house or when someone they know or employ takes a look at the house. A few years ago, August 2021 to be precise, one of the houses I was called to was in Charroux, (86250) by a neighbour of an empty property that was a keyholder, where the following day I proceeded to dismantle the comb and re house the bees in a ruchette, (small hive). During a pause in proceedings the neighbour invited me for a coffee and we then took a walk though his land chatting about wildlife and conservation in general. During the course of this chatting he mentioned that they had a large number of bats every year in their outbuildings which immediatel...

Le Murin cryptique   Myotis crypticus    Feb 2019 A new species of bat has been discovered in wooded areas of Italy , France , Switzerland and Spain . This brings the number of species to be found in France To 35 It is very close to Natterer's bat ( Myotis nattereri ) and positive identification has so far relied on DNA analysis. Despite their closeness they do not hybridise.  Reproduction colonies are usually in hollow trees but can be in artificial man made structures. Hibernation takes place underground in fissures. Much remains to be known about this species. Chris

As soon as we start to take a look at either Hedgerows or Dry stone walls it soon becomes clear that in France as in many parts of the UK it’s difficult to talk about one without the other. Although there have been what could loosely be called hedgerows to some extent in France since before Roman times they really started to come into their own in the 16 th and 17 th centuries as the available land not already owned by the nobility or the Church was eagerly snapped up by the wealthy middle classes, the bourgeoisie urbaine. They used hedgerows to define their boundaries, to protect their crops and to prevent other farmers from grazing their land. Apparently hedge laying, (plessage), was widely used throughout France but has disappeared without a trace in many regions since the 1960’s and I have yet to see an example or a remnant in our region.  From the end of the 19 th century and into the first half of the 20 th century the industrialisation of agriculture started to c...

What role, if any, does hunting play in the massive species population declines we are experiencing across the board in France? Hunting is one of those subjects that invariably divides people into being either for or against with both sides of the argument frequently suffering from the blindness and anger that comes with entrenched attitudes but the question that needs to be asked is how much harm results from hunting relative to other perhaps more acceptable activities when it comes to the declines in wildlife that we are witnessing?  Looked at objectively it soon becomes clear that although the practice of hunting may be abhorrent to many people it doesn’t really have any impact on the populations of deer and boar, (gros gibier or large game as they are known), which is the main form of hunting in France . Many birds are specifically bred to be hunted such as Pheasant, Red-legged Partridge & Mallard and as such don’t really count, (see link at the bottom). Where...

8 th September 2018 It’s no exaggeration to say that increasingly the arable lands of France are becoming environmental wastelands as the same crops are grown time and time again, often on the same land with no rotation and an ever-increasing input of chemical fertilisers and use of pesticides. Manure from cattle and goat sheds is often added to the land in a raw form without being composted which greatly reduces its usefulness and in recent years with the growth in industrial poultry farming and egg production, the vast quantities of waste from these processes are often used. Even if we leave aside the manner in which livestock is treated these days the use of the waste in such a manner, whilst it may have apparent short-term gain, leads to imbalances in the soil that is already little more than compacted dust. The main autumn sown crops of barley, wheat and oilseed rape tend to be harvested by the end of July with maize and sunflowers usually harvested in September and O...

One thing I've learnt is that when you get out and about you never know what that day will bring and that was certainly the case again the other week when I went to do a bit of underground Bat recording organised by Samuel Ducept and Miguel Gailledrat of Vienne Nature. We met at the bureau at 9am which is early enough for me in winter and as soon as everyone was present set of in two vehicles, 5 people in each to go our separate ways for the day. I must mention that for some unknown reason it seems that it’s mainly females in France that are “into” bats and Saturday was no exception. Other than Sam and Miguel I was the only male the other 7 being “girls”, (any female under about 35 or possibly 40 is a girl to me these days). We were going to try and research some underground cavities that either hadn't been looked at before or hadn't been researched for several years. These are all old workings, principally underground quarries in ...