Little feet: Birding in Southern Europe
Whenever I travel, wherever I go, I bring a bird book specific to that area, along with a pair of binoculars. Katherine must weary of the number of times I have brought the car screeching to a halt in order to investigate some darting form among the trees. This was certainly the case on our recent trip to Europe. But first, a little culinary history for you, from Larousse Gastronomique, that thick dictionary of French cooking. This is just a small taste.
Petits pieds: French menu term used to describe all the small birds...
Garden warbler: the garden warbler has been greatly praised by Brillat-Savarin, who...put it in the first place among the small birds. This bird, he said "gets at least as plump as robins and ortolans and nature has given its flesh a slight bitterness and a unique flavour, so exquisite that they engage, gratify, and stimulate all the degustatory powers... According to the poet Martial, "If, by good fortune, you come by a garden warbler, if you would do the right thing, dredge it with pepper".
Lark: bird, of which numerous species are known, including the calandra and crested lark. The lark has a very delicate flesh, but, in some countries, it is in great demand as an aviary bird than as food, by reason of its varied and harmonious song. In France, larks are eagerly sought for the preparation of lark pate...
Ortolan: This small bird enjoys a high reputation as a table delicacy...gastronomes hold the opinion that the only way to cook the bird is to roast it in the oven or on the spit..."In the course of a few delightful car outings in the immense wilderness of Landes, my friends and I had the occasion each to consume half a dozen ortolans..."
Thrush pie: Tourte de grives a la Perigourdine. Bone the thrushes. Stuff each one with a little au gratin stuffing (see Forcemeat) the size of a walnut...
Woodcock: the woodcock, which is considered by people who know what is good, the best winged game, is a migratory bird... Godard d'Aucour sings the praises of a different preparation:
"When a woodcock is reduced to a puree
Prepared by skillful art
This dish, so rare, and not less precious,
Should only be served at the banquets of gods"
Or, with thanks to Quentin Blake, illustrating The Twits by Roald Dahl (best kids' book ever, by the way), I give you Bird Pie:
An advantage, to me, of travel to Europe proves to be the jetlag that is so favourable to rising early. By first song each day I was alert and had no difficulty in getting out the door, binoculars and bird book in hand, while Katherine and the kids remained asleep.
We began our trip by renting a small villa on the outskirts of Mercatale, a village on the hilly border between Tuscany and Umbria. This peaceful place was our base to exploring the nearby hilltop towns, with their tortuous streets that figure in so much literature and works of art.
The valley floor of Mercatale is entirely given over to agriculture but the hills above the valley are mostly bush. Above the villa on a hill sits a disused monastery. Beyond it, trails looped into the bush. Here, I thought, I would focus my birding effort, using the topography around the old building as a partial blind. I had some luck. Thrushes hopped in the meadow. Tits moved noisily through the bushes and were often visible. Creepers scoured the tree bark and woodpeckers and jays called from the trees. Yet, in the many mornings I took this walk, this was usually the limit. There were not so many birds as I am used to, and those present were excessively shy. Each movement sent them into the bushes. Jays screeched and flew off. The noisy woodpeckers and wood pigeons, though common, always seemed far off. Many songbirds never showed themselves, such that I was tantalized by an unfamiliar sound but unable to know the singer. This despite my never speaking. I actually had more luck with the mammals: on my first day a troop of boars (which are half blind) came within 15 m of me while I stood still, before detecting my scent and running off. On another, a curious deer approached me within 5 m, while I sat mute in a field. Then I blinked and it was gone.
My experience in Slovenia was similar, except high in the mountains, as I describe in a separate post.
This morning, I revisited the contrast on a walk through Deer Lake Park. Here, in my old stomping grounds, the flicker was perched on a treetop in the smoky orange dawn. A yellowthroat hopped in an elder bush close enough for us to lock eyes. The towhees kicked the leaves on either side of the trail as I walked to the hemlock forest and back home. Why the difference?
Tim Flannery, the Australian mammalogist, has the clear and intuitive explanation for this: animals that have been exposed to human hunting develop greater shyness. He gives the example of Lord Howe Island. Due east of southern Queensland, Australia, it was uninhabited when the first ship landed on its shores in 1788. The sailors remarked on how the small birds landed on their shoulders and sang around them. Today this is not the case, and both the white Lord Howe gallinule and the Lord Howe Island Wood Pigeon are extinct. Other Pacific islands suffered far greater ecological damage than this one, which is now mostly park. I propose then that the suppliers of Larousse, with their bird guns, lime, and traps, have made timid the birds of Europe. I propose that the birds of Europe, by being hunted, have become wary of humans, including birdwatchers, in cruel irony.
I have no proof for my explanation of the differences I perceive between the birds of southern Europe and my native BC. Perhaps this is some sort of placebo effect? Or was I just seeing fewer birds, rather than a greater inherent shyness? If there is a real effect, is it due to hunting in Europe, or during migration, or on the wintering grounds of Africa and the Middle East? I don't know. I'm simply proposing a hypothesis that would be difficult to test.
I will close my post with the close of the holiday. Oddly enough, some of my best birding was actually in Florence. There were no thrushes, larks, or ortolans here, but the waterbirds were abundant. In southern Europe in the summer, there is little standing fresh water, but the sloped blocks in the Arno River provide riffles for the egrets (not in Larousse) to spear their prey and the kingfisher (not in Larousse) to plunge for it. Wherever I go, birding is a constant pleasure, and in a way the challenge of a bloodless hunt adds, rather than subtracts.
Petits pieds: French menu term used to describe all the small birds...
Garden warbler: the garden warbler has been greatly praised by Brillat-Savarin, who...put it in the first place among the small birds. This bird, he said "gets at least as plump as robins and ortolans and nature has given its flesh a slight bitterness and a unique flavour, so exquisite that they engage, gratify, and stimulate all the degustatory powers... According to the poet Martial, "If, by good fortune, you come by a garden warbler, if you would do the right thing, dredge it with pepper".
Lark: bird, of which numerous species are known, including the calandra and crested lark. The lark has a very delicate flesh, but, in some countries, it is in great demand as an aviary bird than as food, by reason of its varied and harmonious song. In France, larks are eagerly sought for the preparation of lark pate...
Ortolan: This small bird enjoys a high reputation as a table delicacy...gastronomes hold the opinion that the only way to cook the bird is to roast it in the oven or on the spit..."In the course of a few delightful car outings in the immense wilderness of Landes, my friends and I had the occasion each to consume half a dozen ortolans..."
Thrush pie: Tourte de grives a la Perigourdine. Bone the thrushes. Stuff each one with a little au gratin stuffing (see Forcemeat) the size of a walnut...
Woodcock: the woodcock, which is considered by people who know what is good, the best winged game, is a migratory bird... Godard d'Aucour sings the praises of a different preparation:
"When a woodcock is reduced to a puree
Prepared by skillful art
This dish, so rare, and not less precious,
Should only be served at the banquets of gods"
Or, with thanks to Quentin Blake, illustrating The Twits by Roald Dahl (best kids' book ever, by the way), I give you Bird Pie:
An advantage, to me, of travel to Europe proves to be the jetlag that is so favourable to rising early. By first song each day I was alert and had no difficulty in getting out the door, binoculars and bird book in hand, while Katherine and the kids remained asleep.
We began our trip by renting a small villa on the outskirts of Mercatale, a village on the hilly border between Tuscany and Umbria. This peaceful place was our base to exploring the nearby hilltop towns, with their tortuous streets that figure in so much literature and works of art.
The valley floor of Mercatale is entirely given over to agriculture but the hills above the valley are mostly bush. Above the villa on a hill sits a disused monastery. Beyond it, trails looped into the bush. Here, I thought, I would focus my birding effort, using the topography around the old building as a partial blind. I had some luck. Thrushes hopped in the meadow. Tits moved noisily through the bushes and were often visible. Creepers scoured the tree bark and woodpeckers and jays called from the trees. Yet, in the many mornings I took this walk, this was usually the limit. There were not so many birds as I am used to, and those present were excessively shy. Each movement sent them into the bushes. Jays screeched and flew off. The noisy woodpeckers and wood pigeons, though common, always seemed far off. Many songbirds never showed themselves, such that I was tantalized by an unfamiliar sound but unable to know the singer. This despite my never speaking. I actually had more luck with the mammals: on my first day a troop of boars (which are half blind) came within 15 m of me while I stood still, before detecting my scent and running off. On another, a curious deer approached me within 5 m, while I sat mute in a field. Then I blinked and it was gone.
My experience in Slovenia was similar, except high in the mountains, as I describe in a separate post.
This morning, I revisited the contrast on a walk through Deer Lake Park. Here, in my old stomping grounds, the flicker was perched on a treetop in the smoky orange dawn. A yellowthroat hopped in an elder bush close enough for us to lock eyes. The towhees kicked the leaves on either side of the trail as I walked to the hemlock forest and back home. Why the difference?
Tim Flannery, the Australian mammalogist, has the clear and intuitive explanation for this: animals that have been exposed to human hunting develop greater shyness. He gives the example of Lord Howe Island. Due east of southern Queensland, Australia, it was uninhabited when the first ship landed on its shores in 1788. The sailors remarked on how the small birds landed on their shoulders and sang around them. Today this is not the case, and both the white Lord Howe gallinule and the Lord Howe Island Wood Pigeon are extinct. Other Pacific islands suffered far greater ecological damage than this one, which is now mostly park. I propose then that the suppliers of Larousse, with their bird guns, lime, and traps, have made timid the birds of Europe. I propose that the birds of Europe, by being hunted, have become wary of humans, including birdwatchers, in cruel irony.
I have no proof for my explanation of the differences I perceive between the birds of southern Europe and my native BC. Perhaps this is some sort of placebo effect? Or was I just seeing fewer birds, rather than a greater inherent shyness? If there is a real effect, is it due to hunting in Europe, or during migration, or on the wintering grounds of Africa and the Middle East? I don't know. I'm simply proposing a hypothesis that would be difficult to test.
I will close my post with the close of the holiday. Oddly enough, some of my best birding was actually in Florence. There were no thrushes, larks, or ortolans here, but the waterbirds were abundant. In southern Europe in the summer, there is little standing fresh water, but the sloped blocks in the Arno River provide riffles for the egrets (not in Larousse) to spear their prey and the kingfisher (not in Larousse) to plunge for it. Wherever I go, birding is a constant pleasure, and in a way the challenge of a bloodless hunt adds, rather than subtracts.
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