Crane Flock

Our friend Roger took us to the Lac du Der this afternoon, in hopes of seeing Eurasian Cranes. Many thousands of them use the area around the lake as a stopover on their migrations.  However, the weather had been clear and settled since for the past three days, and as often happens under those conditions, most of the cranes in the area had taken advantage of them to take off again toward then north. In fact, this flock was the only group of cranes we saw--it consisted of at least 100 birds, calling very audibly as they always do.  We saw a few other species, but only the usual suspects--swans, chaffinches, sparrows, crows, etc. The last cranes we saw were in Northern Spain   in December.

Otherwise we have been eating superbly, on Anne's and Roger's excellent cooking.  A high point at lunch today was Anne's wonderful steak and kidney pie--the first we'd had in some time.