Bums n Boats!

Well it seems the busking tour is pretty well taking over from my normal postings on 'baggins abroad' but this is not a bad thing. July and August are the 'pants' months for birds just about anywhere and, music apart, we are passing through some stunning parts of France as well as meeting many interesting and diverse people.

A couple of weeks ago whilst busking in a market place we were approached by someone who wanted to book us for their campsite..... free drinks, free accommodation and food. Agreed we said! Slight catch, depending on your outlook on life, the campsite turned out to be one of those where all involved do their camping with no clothes on!

Undeterred, up for the crack and determined not to turn the other cheek, we 3 busking troubadours, clad in nothing but our clothes, strode boldly into a place of nude people at Le Couderc naturist site, a Dutch run establishment (why are we not surprised!) and were immediately disarmed when we had to ask directions to the reception from an octogenarian naturist. Funny thing, it was us that felt embarrassed ....it's not at all sexy, just a bit strange to see so many people going about their activities without clothes on! Further discomfiture ensued when we were shown around and taken to the bar for a drink .... faced with 3 sets of  male bum cheeks leaning against the bar its really tricky to make the right sort of conversation or know where to look. I think we ended up admiring the beams in the ceiling!

Joking apart, I have to say that the owners made us feel very comfortable, provided us with a chalet, food and all the booze we could drink. There was no pressure at all for us to do the naturist thing and for our gig in the evening all the campers were dressed. It was a good gig, we raised a decent amount for the charity. Sorry folks, no pics were allowed of the naturist thing, shame because those three cheeks at the bar was a picture dying for a caption but here's one of us playing the gig and some blond geezer with a guitar who didn't mind being photographed!

After that experience we've headed further south and after a small but very enjoyable gig at the 12 bar in Hure (nr Bordeaux) we've picked up some very lucrative gigs in the bars along the Midi Canal where it runs alongside the Rivere Garonne. The canal itself links the the two coasts of France, the Atlantic and Mediterranean and is a quite magnificent piece of engineering. Constructed in the 17th Century by a chap called Pierre Paul Riquet, it was commissioned as an alternative waterway route to the dangerous and long trade route around Spain. After falling into disrepair after the 2nd world war it has now been given a new lease of life by the tourist trade and judging by the multi-national make up of the boating folk - Australians, New Zealanders, Dutch (of course, they get everywhere!) and Brits as well as many French boats, its certainly thriving with the several ports along the way providing great meeting places as well as good places for us to busk and make great money for the charity!

The canal was an excellent place for taking photographs, not just because of the gaily coloured boats and barges but also because there was so much going on, with lock gates opening and closing and well, you know boat folk .... if their not tying knots or scrubbing the decks, their usually just showing off! Anyway, boat photography is a new genre for me so here's a few selected pics I thought captured the feel of the place.

This is about as busy as it gets!

Love the composition on this one and I think my mum will like the name of one of these fine vessels!

Here's Hilda May's back end!

One of many grand old barges moored up

Guessing this is newer but no less grand!

Could this be a French rival to the Grand Canal in Venice?

Deck guard!!

No photo collection of canal life would be complete without at least one lock pic so here you go .... small boy and 2 cyclists thrown in (not literally of course) for good measure!

We made many friends and acquired some great contacts during our short stay along the various ports along the Midi Canal and the Beyond the Gap tour will be back there on our way up North. For now though we head for the Pyrenees and since my blogging is way out of date here's a bit of pseudo time travel for you .... we've already done the Pyrenees gig (went very very well!!) ... I've been to Spain and back and by now Jane n Mark should have sampled at least one stage of the Tour de France. Oh dear .... much catch up blog posts to do!!!

On Tour ... Dordogne magic!

On tour still with the band and although we've played just 3 gigs and a couple of busking sessions we've already netted over 500 euros for Cancer Support France.

We're all loving the performances but the actual touring, travelling from site to site and living on the road, is predictably hard work for 3 fifty year olds but the sun is shining and the wine is flowing so we're all in good spirits.

We're in the Dordogne at the moment and as luck would have it seem to be tracking the river itself ... its a truly beautiful setting and although I've past this way a couple of times before I can easily see why so many English folk choose this part of France to either settle or holiday - its like a quieter version of Devon!

The bar we played at Mauzac last week (le barrage) was right on the banks of the river and in between practising, playing and sound checks I managed a few trips out with my camera. Not much going on birdwise but this Grey Heron perched on some kind of waterworks structure made a good picture

As did these flying Swans at the same location

A little further down the river there was a good example of one of the many fine aqueducts to be found all over France.

Back to the music tour and worth mentioning the charity we are supporting again - Cancer Support France (all info on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/BeyondTheGap) and some of the work we're putting in here! For sure, most of our gigs are fun and well received but some of the busking is hot, hard work ... just look at the blood, sweat and tears we shed in the name of music at this market venue in Lalinde -

I'll be diplomatic here and just say this was a 'learning experience'.... but 19euros for 3 hours playing in the heat of the day was not what we expected from French market goers!! I might as well have worn the hat rather than put it down ..... spent more than that re hydrating myself!!

You live and learn.

Our first gig raised 320 euros .... wow!!!

Ok, apologies for scant posts of late but blogging and touring in a band at age 50 plus is at the very limits of my multi-tasking abilities!!!

Here's a short clip of our first booked gig on the charity tour of SW france ... it was hosted by Le Barrage at Mauzac, a lovely bar on the banks of the Dordogne and many many thanks to Amanda, the owner of the bar, for contacting us and arranging what turned out to be a fantastic evening for all concerned. Everyone had a great time, we raised 320 euros on the night for Cancer Support France and we got a paid follow up gig later in the year .... such fun!!

Beyond the Gap Summer Tour .... all for charity!

Rain permitting, the band Beyond the Gap (that's me, Jane & Mark) should be setting off on our Summer tour of SW France today. The plan is to head south to the Dordogne and perform our stuff in various bars, campsites and open markets there and then doing pretty much the same further south in the Languedoc, Aquitaine and the Pyrenees ... hey we've even thought about heading into Spain, but hear the busking laws are pretty strict there so it might just be a cheap fuel stop! In any event we have to be back for the 29th July because we're booked to play Lascaufest

We have several booked venues along the way but our thinking is that most of our performances will be of the busking variety.The whole tour is in aid of Cancer Support France with all profit going to them and we have a 'just giving' site set up if anyone reading this wants to contribute.

You can also follow us via our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/BeyondTheGap), we'll be updating most days and we're also in cahoots with AngloInfo (http://france.angloinfo.com/) who have agreed to give us free advertising in return for promoting their websites.

This our main promo pic that goes on any posters for booked venues ... me and Mark looking suitably moody!

















And here's a couple of pics of our vehicles all 'stickered up' with Jane having a celebratory drink before the off ...... Ribena she said!

So, all ready for the off ..... weather to be honest is not looking grand for busking but we need to go because I'm picking my fiancee up from Bergerac airport on Wednesday .... yipeee!!!

Moeze / Oleron reserve naturelle trip (Part 2)

Here we go again then, part 2 of our birding trip to the Moeze / Oleron reserve on the Atlantic coast of France and the focus this time is on the many smaller birds that abound on the food rich saltmarshes.


Yellow Wagtails were one of the most obvious birds around and luckily from a photographic point of view also the most colourful. Yellow Wagtails are one of those birds that look different depending where in the world you see them .... nothing to do with planetary perspective, that would be weird, it's just that they have many sub species. In layman's terms you could say that they have many cousins. Yellow wags in the UK for example are almost completely yellow whilst in France and Spain they have bluish heads. Here's a nice one from our trip and below British race bird (courtesy of Google Images)

You'll see a slightly different race or 'cousin' of the same bird in Scandinavia and another in Italy but to my mind the British race is the most colourful. There's a similar thing going on with other wagtails ... here's a White Wagtail on the reserve which is in fact the main species and below it's much darker cousin found in the UK, the Pied Wagtail.

Right that's wagtails sorted lets move on!

Warblers are a tiny (smaller than sparrows as a rule) group of birds that you'll more often hear than see but they were very obvious on the reserve with Whitethroats and Melodious Warblers singing from bushes and tree tops everywhere. On our last day we spent about 3 hours on a viewing platform near the visitor centre and being at tree top height it was ideal for photographing both of these species. I struggled a bit with the Mi lad ohs (my slang for Melodious Warblers because they're so perky and bold) and this is the best I could do ....

Much better luck with Whitethroats and some good captures here .... even got one singing in mid flight!

Have to say I was pretty impressed with how all of these came out, the detail is very good and at this kind of range (within 20 meters) and more or less filling the frame this is one situation where the Canon EF400 really shines. Just as well because I've just received the estimate from Tamron for fixing my 200-500 and at £235 it may well end with a drink 'accidently' spilt on it, if you see what I mean! I do miss the extra reach though and maybe it's time to start looking at a 1.4 or 2x converter.

Ok, moving on, and I promised some non bird pics from the trip. To get some idea of the landscape of the place I think fits the bill, you even get the dubious bonus of some mad birder with a feather in his hat!

I don't get much chance to photograph frogs, sometimes I'm wishing they'd shut up so I can hear the birds but as I happened to look over a bank there were some croakers looking quite pretty in a ditch surrounded by water flowers and with the sun on them (pic left). No idea what kind of frog it is!

The only other obvious photogenic animals about were Hares, particularly active during the evening. Included one at the end of part 1 of this trip report but they were so handsome looking hare's another!

When we explored the coastal strip we came upon a nudist beach... Mark made a play of scanning out to sea (there is a type of sea bird called a boobie!)... anyway, I moved on and I took picture of this lighthouse!

Always nice to add a bit of colour to the blog and whenever I see nice flowers or butterflies I usually snap them up. Here's a nice pink flower that I'm sure someone will know the correct name for ...

...and here's a couple of butterflies that I do know the correct names for!



Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)



Swallowtail (Papilio machaon)

 In more ways than I'm going to make a swift return to a few 'odds and sods'  bird pics. Ever tried taking a picture of a Swift? Damned tricky and nearly always I've failed to get even half decent captures....they just fly so fast! I took loads from the viewing platform in the hope that maybe a couple would come out well enough to post. These are not nearly as good as I'd hoped but for the record ...

 A few more left overs from the many bird pics I took on the reserve

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Little Egret

Spotted Flycatcher
  

And lastly here's a picture of some Yellow Flag Irises that Mark wanted me to take a picture so here you go matey!





Catch up time ....3 great birds, 3 great photo shoots

It seems to have been a real busy time over here for the past few weeks ... our band 'Beyond the Gap' have been practising almost non stop trying to get Mark (our bassist) up to speed with a full set before we set off on our Summer tour in aid of Cancer Support France (full article in the pipeline). I've had my mate (also called Mark) over for a week and for the past 2 weeks I've been fulfilling my Open University duties and marking student assignments (that's 3 Marks!).

Hardly full time 9 to 5 of course and I'm not complaining but certainly I've not posted a huge amount on here recently so here I am sat in bed at 1.00 in the morning posting something of a catch up.

A while back me and Mark were walking around the forested part of the Etang de Beauvour when we heard the distinctive trilling of a Wood Warbler, a good bird to have anytime, anyplace, except perhaps on an aeroplane sipping martini (the older generation will get that!). Anyway, we did a bit of stalking and crept as close as we could to where it was singing. In the end we just sat down against a couple tree trunks and waited for it come back to us, which it did and treated us with some splendidly close views ... he was so close in fact that on occasion I couldn't focus the camera! You'll see what I mean by this selection of photographs ....

On the same day I managed to get this reasonable close up shot of a 4 Spotted Chaser (pic below).... not sure whether this is classed as a dragonfly or a damselfly but nice detail and you can easily see the 4 spots (1 on each wing) and this is a female because of the yellowy brown body as a pose to the grey males ..... thanks
google!








On another occasion we were out on one of my regular treks and we came across a couple of very handsome Red Backed Shrikes, the male in particular was in tip top breeding condition and sitting very proud. Problem was when I got in to position to take what I thought was going to be 'gripper' of a shot there was no memory card in the camera ... doh! To add insult to injury a while later we had an equally lovely Melodious Warbler singing it's heart out less than 10 metres away (I could almost hear the memory card laughing at me from its cosy little socket back home in my laptop!)

Well I don't like to be laughed at by my digital devices so with the memory card rounded up I paid a later visit and as I suspected this was a nesting pair and still in the same place. As with the Wood Warbler there was plenty of stalking, creeping around and waiting to be done and whilst these birds weren't nearly as fearless my patience was rewarded by these lovely shots....

So there we go, a couple of great photo shoots of 2 splendid birds from the past couple of weeks and I must be on something of a hot (shot) streak because yesterday morning I managed to get these cracking shots of a Nightingale singing. Most people are aware that Nightingales have a beautiful song but how many of you have actually heard one or seen one? They're actually very common throughout mainland Europe but scarce and declining in the UK (a few pairs nest on Thorne Moor, S Yorks but pretty much absent further North). I usually see a flash of russet red tail feathers as they dart in and out of dense undergrowth from where they usually sing but this was my lucky day .... a gap in the trees, a decent lens and hey presto!

Looking at that singing Nightingale I'm thinking it's a shame you can't hear it so I'm going to try and post either a video (it will be of a bush!) or a sound clip to go with the above.

There we go, caught up a bit, just need to finish off and post part 2 of our trip to Moeze / Oleron and I'll be almost up to speed!