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Many years ago, a great birding friend, sadly deceased, was playing professional cricket one warm summer day. Waiting to bat, he wandered off the pitch to a neighbouring field, looked over the hedge and was amazed to be able to count over six hundred Turtle doves (tourterelle des bois) feeding together in a loose flock in the afternoon sun.

Sadly, those days are long gone. Heavily hunted in the Mediterranean area on their migratory passage, numbers have declined dramatically; for the last three years they have been protected and recovered some of the losses, but from the beginning of this year the moratorium was lifted once more, and they are hunted again here in France and elsewhere. 

In Britain they have declined by some 98%, and Mediterranean hunting has been proved to be a major cause.

After years of persecution, they are shy and a difficult bird to see if you try to approach too near; but once you have heard them they are unmistakable – and the epitome of the sound of summer.

They purr, the gentlest of sounds, turrrrr, turrrrr, a sound so suited to their gentle look of innocence and delicacy that I am amazed anyone could be so unmoved by their beauty and shoot them out of the sky for a few grams of meat (they weigh less than half of a wood pigeon) – but I am not everyone.

In the French Basque country, I once came across an elaborate set-up of wires stretching high into the tree canopy, to which would be attached a captive dove that would lure down passing migrants, to make for an easy shot from a platform. 

Once here, the males set up territory and purr out their song from the tops of the trees, and also, somewhat less poetically, from cables where they perch. Apparently, despite the charms of the male's delightful purring song and his gentle look, the nest that a couple builds together is a scrappy affair. 

They leave again in August, once more to run the gauntlet of Mediterranean guns…

Another sound that is only heard in summer is that of the European Nightjar (engoulevent). This is amongst the strangest sounds coming from a bird's beak you are ever likely to hear. Active at night, resting during the day, they are hard to photograph, but it was possible to get the image (see above).

As a child my friends and I used to peg pieces of card to the forks of our bicycles, and they would clack as we rode along. This sound is close to the rattling 'song' of the nightjar, and it can be very persistent, going on nearly all night at the height of the nesting season. There is a slight alteration in pitch every few seconds. 

They also make wing claps when flying, and a rising, rather shrill 'fiorr, fiorr' call especially when the female is close by. Altogether rather weird.

Every year since we moved here in the Aude, there has been a nightjar nesting territory on a nearby hillside. Going out just before darkness falls, it is possible to hear this territorial song starting up. Listening carefully, you can catch the double pitch in the reel, and I have been trying to decide by listening carefully whether there are two males 'counter-singing.' 

The sound certainly moves rapidly around the wood, and last evening I finally heard the two sounds simultaneously, so yes, there are two males at least. 

The nightjar flight is also peculiar. They are the only bird that I know that sometimes will fly above your head persistently, and especially if you have something white to flap, (like a handkerchief), they seem to come and take a look. 

Fluttering in flight from side to side like a giant butterfly, clearly they are intrigued, and it has been suggested that the white patches on the male's wings trigger this behaviour. Perhaps – anyway, it is a delight when it happens. Once they even seemed to be interested in my dog, who has plenty of white in her fur.

As ground nesting birds, the camouflage of their mottled brown feathering makes them very difficult to see if they stay still and quiet on the nest. At night I sometimes come across them sitting in the middle of a quiet country road, getting up to fly away in the headlights. 

Hunting at night, the 'gape' with the beak wide open, is enormous, useful for trapping insects when in flight, located by the enormous light-sensitive eyes, which close down to narrow slits during the day. 

In Europe, the birds on the other end of the camouflage scale must be the bee-eaters (gueppier), shamelessly flaunting their exotic, almost gaudy, colours for all the world to see. A recent colonizer into Britain, probably as a result of a warming world, they are a kaleidoscope of brightness. Male and female alike – only the juveniles are a little more discreet – they can often be located by their delightful contact calls, a lilting 'prrut' as the flocks quarter the air chasing insects. And yes, they do eat bees, but not in numbers serious enough to realistically harm a healthy hive.

They nest in holes that they dig in suitably firm banks of soil. I had a tip off from a friend who lives in the Ariège about a flooded gravel pit that has been colonized by both bee-eaters and sand martins (hirondelle de rivage). Both these species like to excavate their nesting holes in soft earth banks, digging holes which can be about a metre deep to protect the nestlings from predators. Often located near water, the colonies were clearly housing several dozens of each species. It was good to see that the large gravel pit had been fenced off, and signs put up to warn people not to enter so as not to disturb the birds.

Opposite the lake was the sand martin colony; even more well constructed than the bee-eater site. It reminded me of the cave houses of some Yemeni tribes, built into the cliff faces, and probably chosen for the same characteristics of dryness, protection and insulation. There was a constant busyness around the colony; mainly feeding of the chicks whose heads would poke out of the holes, asking to be fed.