As it was Thursday evening it was time for les rapaces nocturnes.
In my experience the French aren’t big birdwatchers so I wasn’t expecting too many people to be there.
The talk had been moved to la mairie in la salle des marriages.
There were 30 of us in there, watched over of course by President Macron.
Matthieu from LPO (Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux) Birdlife France gave a fascinating talk about owls.
It started with the key question – quelle est la différence entre un hibou et une chouette?
Now I had no idea and had always wondered.
Turns out un hibou has to have visible ear tufts.
I also learnt the French names of loads of owls.
- Effraie des clochers- barn owl
- Chouette hulotte – tawny owl
- Chevêche d’Athena – little owl
- Le petit duc scops- Scops owl
- Hibou moyen duc – long-eared owl
- Grand-duc d’Europe – eagle owl
I learnt it’s illegal to take home an owl feather you find on the ground, owls ears are at different heights to enable them to locate their prey more accurately.
We watched this BBC video which shows you how silently une effraie des clochers flies.
We examined some pelotes de rejection and then learnt there’s not much point looking out for barn owls en Provence- there aren’t many around.
All in all a great couple of hours.
Merci Matthieu.
Thrown to (the) Lyon 