Find all the episodes of the series “Mon village singulier” here.
Number 26 is perched in a cherry tree at Mathilde’s, number 30 in Christian and Maddie’s prunus, number 55 in an apple tree at Claire’s… The tour of the birdhouses takes some time in Champien (Somme), which does not however count only one main street, three perpendiculars and 285 inhabitants. It leads to number 84, alongside François Sauvé, the amateur but very knowledgeable ornithologist who transformed this village-street, wedged between Amiens and Compiègne (Oise), into an abounding haven for birds.
A character that this former mayor of Champien, now 67 years old, driven by an ultimate quest: to see the hoopoe one day. Straw hat of a tropical explorer, binoculars slung over the shoulder, ears on the lookout, François Sauvé thinks “dedicated full-time to the avian cause” since this wonder, at 10 years old, in front of a white-fronted redstart. He handles the Latin names of piafs as cheerfully as he does self-mockery: “I’m a little on. I’m running from a family meal if I hear a crested wren. I sometimes pound in the car, too…”
In Champien, the horticulturist by training accelerated, on the nest box side, after being struck down by a burn-out, “July 5, 2017”. He then worked (too much) as a logistics manager for a sugar refinery. After years of virtual seclusion at home, “it is thanks to the birds that he went to people again, in 2022”, testifies Odile, his wife. The garden saturated with these refuges for tits or starlings that he puts together himself, here he goes, one by one, his neighbors to convince them to hang some in their own trees.
The case is seriously carried out, for eight months: inventory of (fifty-one) species present, nesting and hunting areas, thanks to nocturnal telescope monitoring; manufacture of fourteen different models of nesting boxes… Out of the hundred or so homes solicited, forty accepted. “I expected barely twenty, I was overwhelmed, he said with a smile. Even the president of the hunting society asked for his birdhouse! »
“It’s consensual”
In the dormitory village whose only businesses are now itinerant, a conversation has resumed around the graceful birds. Teacher and deputy mayor, Mathilde Daquet (nichoir 26) is looking forward to doing soon “a commented walk in the woods by season, to enjoy [leur] expert ! “. Retired trader, Maddie Deledalle (nest box 30), she would like “a board with the different birds, to learn”. The local birdman is overwhelmed with requests.
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