France in Focus

We feed a lot of birds every day and have sparrows,chaffinches,tits,blackbirds etc. We were away for 10 days and naturally they sought food elsewhere. We have been back over a week and have not seen a single bird anywhere in the garden. Where have they all gone?

To the nearest stay-at-home all-day café They'll be back when the cheep gets around....

I hope so but there hasn't been any of the birds like doves,pigeons ,thrushes that don't take the food.

Are you rural? Do you have sad old men sat in Wendy houses in nearby woods blasting pigeons out of the sky with what sound like Howitzers? If I was a bird, I'd be keeping a very low profile at the moment

We are on the edge of a village and there is no hunting.

Well, it's incredibly mild for the end of October, so perhaps they're finding enough natural food still. I'm sure they'll be back once temperatures drop and the seeds, berries and insects are depleted.

We have now been back 12 days and have only seen a woodpecker and a wood pigeon. Nothing flying around. What we have seen, for the first time in 30 years, was a big orange slug (yuk) Climate change?

Ohhh.....that's Cyril! I wondered where he had got to . Obviously fancied a change of scene during the Toussaint hols.
There are literally hundreds of his chums in my garden. Sadly, nothing but nothing eats them, not even the French.

We are used to seeing them in Vendee which, like you, is further south than us

Stand by for asiatic frelons, tiger mosquitos, man-eating spiders and all the other joys sidling in via Bordeaux and making themselves at home