17) Wildlife in France

There is a wide variety of wildlife in France.  But not as much as you would expect.  We think this is probably because of the Gallic predilection for shooting things.  Everywhere you go in the countryside you see little red (warning) notices declaring (ominously) Reserve de Chasse.  We assume this means if you venture along this path you may well catch a stray bullet, and this will be considered your fault for being in its path.  The apparent paucity of wildlife could, therefore, either be because the French have shot everything, or because the wildlife, having learnt about humans and their passion for guns, keep well out of the way and you rarely see them.

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It could be a bit of both.  When we were staying in the Haute Loire last Spring and the snow came, we put out some bread for the birds.  To our surprise ,they didn’t touch it.  We enhanced it with the addition of some nuts but, again, they wouldn’t go near it, even though it went down to minus fifteen degrees.  We could only conclude that, after years of persecution by man (Frenchmen), they assumed it was some sort of trap, or perhaps poisoned or drugged (or perhaps they didn't want to be an easy target for buzzards - although I believe they only eat carrion).

One thing you see a great deal of is birds of prey, buzzards particularly.  Presumably they are fairly adept at keeping out of range.  And I don’t think even the French eat buzzards (being carnivores, they would be likely to make you terribly ill).  I know about this because I saw a fascinating programme on television about a stone age (or was it an ancient Egyptian) man who had died of some horrible disease, and they had concluded it was because he had eaten the liver of a lion (I can’t remember how they had worked this out, but it was very convincingly argued at the time). They pointed out that herbivores have to eat plants, omnivores (like us) can eat plants and animals-that-eat-plants, and carnivores (like lions and buzzards) can eat more or less anything.  When these rules are broken, things start to go wrong – as happened, of course, when farmers started feeding ground-up bits of animals to cows (herbivores).  You had BSE in the cows, and CJD in those (humans) who ate the affected cows.  A great pity the farming community/industry didn’t see the same programme (I think it was on BBC 2, though).

We were told by (our very knowledgeable and favourite) estate agent, Pierre, that foxes are very uncommon in France. He (being French) has lived all his life in France and has only ever seen one once.  Imagine our surprise and excitement, therefore, when we saw one quite close up after only a few weeks in France.  It was enormous.  At least twice the size of the ones you see in England, and nothing like the mangy beasts you now see all over London.  This one was truly magnificent (quite worthy of an iron statue in a Chateau – see above).

We wondered whether Pierre was accurate about his theory on the comparative rarity of foxes.  We were aware that those who keep chickens still lock them up at night in France.  We assumed this was to protect them from foxes.  Not so, we discovered, when chatting to an old English gent whose house we had gone to see (and who used to keep chickens).  After an appalling night of carnage and mayhem, he had decided to give up his chickens (those who were not disgorged and torn to pieces).  But it was not old Reynard who was the culprit, it was a renegade band of pine martens. It seems Pierre may have been right yet again.

The biggest thrill of all, though, was seeing our first sanglier (Pierre had only ever seen two).  You see foxes in England, and buzzards, and now kites, you even see red squirrels in the Lake District and Northumberland, but you will never see a wild boar in the wild.  It was so exciting. We were driving along at dusk behind a couple of cars, and suddenly there was a screech of brakes as the front one swerved  to avoid hitting something.  And then we saw it.  Galloping at break neck speed across the field to the left of us, turf flying, nostrils flaring, and the off into the woods on the other side.  All the times we have been to France, Georgi and I have talked about seeing a sanglier, but we never had until now.  (The photo above shows the exact spot, near Le Nayrac, where we saw our first sanglier).

This wonderful character turned up whilst we were looking at a house in the Aveyron.  He was a neighbour and had wondered who we were.  He was obviously bored and, much to the estate agent's annoyance, decided to tag along, giving helpful comments every now and then.  Comments such as "It's not so bad in summer, but it's a terrible place to be in the winter time" and "Of course it used to be quite grand, but the folk who live here haven't bothered to keep it up, and the whole place is falling in about your ears now" I was rather intrigued by this old fellow, who obviously had a certain insight concerning this property.  The agent seemed to take an instant dislike to him, and treated him, I thought, rather rudely.  I let Georgi go on ahead with the agent and hung back to chat to Monsieur.

The agent had been able to understand him no better than I could, his patois was so strong and thick.  It became apparent he was just as much part of the wildlife as the foxes, buzzards and wild boar.  We chatted about sheep and cows, and roofs falling in, and quite a lot about boundaries (particularly where his ended and the agent's property began).  He was very friendly and, despite talking in a completely incomprehensible dialect, surprisingly easy to understand.

As I child, I was always very fond of animals.  I had lots of pets; newts, frogs, rabbits, tortoises, budgerigars, hampsters and so on, and my favourite books were Dr Doolittle.  Often I would dream I could talk with the animals, and in the morning, the experience still seemed so  real.  I then read Conrad Lorenz, and learnt about the little ducklings who thought their mother was a pair of red wellington boots, and the jackdaws he made friends with.  I have never totally lost the dream  about the magic in animals.  Imagine my surprise then, when I suddenly caught site of a pushmepullyou.  Straight out of Dr Dolittle (except I think that was a goat), and right there in France.  I knew all those cynical grown ups would never believe me, but luckily I had my little camera to hand.  If the pushmepullyou really does exist, then surely it might also be possible to talk to the animals?