We do give a Hoot

Most summer residents here have arrived now.  All the local villages have hordes of screaming Swifts and Minerve has Alpine Swifts regularly over the caves now. Bee-eaters are more numerous and Turtle Doves are purring each day in local scrub and woodlands.  Golden Orioles can be heard and all the expected warblers are present.  Hoopoes are already feeding young.  Finally today the first of our local pair of Rollers returned today and posed helpfully in a roadside bush.

What is causing concern amongst our community is the complete absence from our area of Scops Owls.  Every year their sonic calls cause much excitement and discussion amongst residents.  I did hear one briefly earlier in the spring but that was obviously a migrant moving on.  As of today none have arrived and that is the first time since we began coming here 10 years ago.  Hopefully nothing dreadful has happened in Africa or on migration and they will still turn up.  It is not too late but we are all concerned.