Colourful Bee Eaters

[Washy]

My husband went outside the mill today to report that he had seen a parrot sitting on the roof rack of our Land Rover.......binoculars at the ready we looked out of the window to identify a very windswept Bee Eater bird, wonderful colours, blue, yellow and tan, about 11inches long with a longer feather in the middle of his tail feathers.

We have had torrential rain for three days and we thought he had been blown in from North Africa. When we looked him up in the bird book we found to our delight, with maybe a little trepidation as we keep bees, that they are indigenous to this area of southern France.

He has sat all day perched above a large blue flowering bush (teuchrium?) which is always noisy with bees of all types, it is too cold today for bees to be out unless the sun shines.

This was a little ray of sunshine for us in a few otherwise dreadful rainy days.

We also have spectacular Hoopoes.

[Alcazar]

LAST EDITED ON 04-May-04 AT 04:16 PM (BST)

I've seen a colony of Bee-eaters in a sandy bank near to Morestel, east of Lyon, and a Roller or two near to Beziers.

The birds that worry me near my French house are the Short-toed eagles..............because they are also known as Snake eagles, and that's what they live on, so if they're there, so are the snakes!!

We have Hoopoes too, but two were killed on the road near us within minutes of each other last time we were there.