The wildlife in Spring at Fougas

At the Château Fougas, the life is punctuated by the seasons, and for each of them, the appearance of a wild animal, a bird, tell us the beginning of a new cycle, signing how the nature is permanently around us.

In those organic and biodynamic vines, the life abounds and offer herself happily to our daily observation.

Whether, despite their beauty, we do not appreciate the view of the deer, coming by herd, tasting the first buds of our vines in front of the Château, neither the view of the boars and them piglets who are rooting and smashing the rows to eat roots and worms, we have fun of the fox passing, each evening, alongside the Château, as the master of the place, indolent and phlegmatic, to return in his den … and hare bouncing.

However, it is the birds which offer us the greater satisfaction! Mainly those who let us in autumn to come back in spring…

Always arriving first, the hoopoe goes all around the house, coming just a few steps away from us, like to greet us… Fortunately, her nest is in a cranny far away from the Château, because the droppings of the chicks are queasy.

Then there is the wagtail, wilder and more coward. Her light and fast flight, describes sweet curves in the garden.

In late April, we are waiting impatiently the first swallow, and like the old adage say, only one does not a summer make, anxiously her fellow.

Before reaching their nests, which are all around the house and into the barns, they does several rounds together, like to

show the place of her destination…

It is a great relief for us, because when they are all arrived, we know that we won’t have any spring frosts… The most disciplined nest just in front of our entrance door… We will have the pleasure to see the younger until they are fledged…

This year, they arrived around April the 20th …

Then it is the warbler who is babbling, the last one to arrive…

The late May is accompanied by an inextricable cacophony , between the cuckoo song who is nesting in a grove in front of the house, the whistling of the swallows, the regular snap of the green woodpecker, the skylark, the “peep” of the hoopoe, the nightingale song, and all the other birds who are waking up the morning at the sunrise…

Each spring we have newcomers, this year a pair of turtledoves has just settled into the magnolia, and two kingfisher, alongside the stream of the daisy, at the edge of the plateau, that is the proof of a healthy nature and of the growth of the biodiversity around the Château Fougas…