French wildlife and beekeeping

It’s fair to say that our fields aren't the most exciting habitat in the region although they probably are the most species rich as a whole for the immediate area albeit most of the species are common, but then common doesn't mean there aren't increasingly reduced numbers at a local level – it all adds up and ours is probably the only decent size bit of proper grassland for many kilometres, everything else is cultivated or so called improved pasture which is really only one step up from a wheat field in terms of species usefulness. Anyway this isn't about the surrounding area but just a small selection from some idle wandering here and there in our own fields recently with the camera just taking photos of anything that caught my eye and hopefully draw a little attention to the simple plants that can make all the difference. Starting with a couple of plants that once introduced to grassland will soon establish and sort themselves out, Crown Vetch and Birds Foot ...

Perhaps understandably many people I meet often have the strange idea that managing land for wildlife means doing nothing, just letting everything go and take its “natural” course. If only that was the case, which I suppose it could be if the objective was to allow everything to revert to woodland, but even there it would require managing in one form or another to maximise its benefits. Anyway there’s no shortage of trees in the general sense here – yet !!! Where we live certain habitats have all but disappeared in recent years, the final nail in the coffin was the removal in 2008 of the requirement to put 10% of land out of production, a process known in English as “Set Aside”, (to leave fallow / en jachère). This has lead to just about every last piece of land that isn’t woodland and that can be used for cereals to be ploughed up as mentioned elsewhere. Even in 1996 when we purchased our house and three hectares things were bad enough leaving little choice for us but to at least...

Finally I got round to buying a Trail Camera and this is my first capture other than a hardly visible rat scurrying around in the dark and a feral cat that roams around the immediate area. The model I’ve bought is a NatureView Cam HD Max 119439 and I’m hoping it comes somewhere near their glowing sales pitch! I like the idea of the two close focus lenses 25 and 46cm for use with a bird feeding station and the automatic switch from daylight colour to darkness IR.     Of course there is the small matter of what’s actually around, some of which I’m already aware of from either actual sightings or traces. The Roe deer I see quite often and plenty of Red squirrels when they decide to show themselves. Occasionally I have sightings of Marten and Weasel, (dawn or dusk), but I more often see their excrements although I haven’t seen any for a month or two and I suspect I may have to resort to a bit of “baiting” to try and attract some creatures to a feeding zone.   Any...

Now the time has come "to get started", but where to begin?  Best to start by explaining a little about where we live, our attitude to wildlife biodiversity and the environment in both the wider world and our own little piece of the planet we own and manage. For me achieving maximum species diversity is paramount within the constraints of what would be present or perhaps historically was present in a given region providing those previous conditions can still be met. Evidently it isn't possible to put back heath-land where a city has been built and there are many localities where that type of situation exists which we can only make the best of. Fortunately that wasn't a situation we inherited some 18 years ago in 1995 when we purchased our cottages and land here in the west of France, even though a large part of our three hectares had been intensively cultivated with sunflowers, wheat, barley and oil seed rape for many years, all regularly dosed with "cides...