Unsightly Virtue (or Safe Houses for April Birds)

Stone huts, stables, barns, pig sties…. The oldest out-buildings of the vineyard weep for renovation.  Fortunately, I was reassured this morning that there is an upside to not having the time or means to make everything “nice.”

One reward for living in semi disarray – the joy of sighting two “Huppes fasciées,” (Hoopoe in English) a protected species in Europe.  Their numbers have fallen as pesticide use has grown and killed off their meal plan, mostly big insects like slugs, beetles, snails, etc.  They nest in old abandoned buildings, piles of rocks, fallen trees.  There has been a family here for ages, shy and rarely seen, but their oop-oop-oop gives them away. I held my breath when the male rose out of a bush that I know from experience to be riddled with nasty slugs, and meet his girlfriend who flew out of a tiny hole in the old stone pig sty.

They perched for an interminable moment, beak to beak, he extending a precious slimy morsel to her in a frozen courtship dance, their crowns gone vertical on high alert.

And of all times, I didn’t have my camera!   So thank you to Luc Viatour www.lucnix.be for the marvelous photo.

The other beneficiaries of our lackadaisical architectural stewardship are barn swallows.  They return to us from North Africa each spring, masses of them, and we sit just for the fun of watching their joyful acrobatics.  Alone, in pairs, as a troupe, circling, swooping, playing tag, catching their food in mid air  – they are matchless for entertainment.

They are also fearless tribe protectors.  When a large sparrow hawk recently carried off a baby, panic and distress was followed by rally cries and strategic formations.  As the hawk swooped in on a second raid the tiny swallows surrounded him en masse in counter attack.The number of swallows in France has also fallen, often because pesticide use kills off their food.  Another reason is that they lost their homes when many of the old stone houses of southwest France were bought up in the 1980’s and ’90’s and restored.  (Often by the Brits, so this was nicknamed “The Second Invasion.” The first invasion being 1152 to 1453 when Aquitaine was sort of an English colony.)

Although the Brits have carried out some of the most respectful restorations, the birds don’t really understand that.  I guess that’s why they all live with us.  As I look out my window now they’re circling in scores around the courtyard.  After swooping, they go back to their multiple nests in not restored stables, tool sheds, bread houses and garages, places where cow troughs haven’t been touched for 60 years.

Of course, the downside of swallows is the mess they leave on your car or picnic table as they nest under the eaves of your garage or gazebo.

Maybe my mother won’t agree that slovenliness is next to godliness, but there is one point on which my conscience is clear.  Ruin isn’t always synonymous with mess.