The first one I have spotted this year. A handsome male… 
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With a little garlic and a squeeze of lemon flash grilled on the bbq = lovely!
Do you know what it is?
Sorry Mat - yes, it’s a male stag beetle. (lucarne cerf volant)
Tss tss, lucane 
a lucarne is how the lucane might come into your house 
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Ha ha… it was late and I was tired - excuses, excuses - I’ll try and do better next time.
We and our gite visitors saw snakes mating.
They entwined and rose up into the air.
We cannot find any pictures in our Flora and Fauna.
They were yellow and green.
We think they find the covering on the sloping sides of the pool safe and warm.
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Incidentally, a quick check on whether or not the snake is a viper or simply a grass snake (of which there is a wide variety)
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Vipère Aspic - tiny scales on head and eyes split with vertical black bar (like a cat)
Couleuvre - large scales on head and plain round eyes
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Exactly.
Sweet thing, if it is like the ones in my garden it’s probably thirsty, I have drinking water for creatures (from deer to bees and all sorts between) all around the house but have put out more for this episode of canicule.
I’ve done just that… for some weeks I’ve left various trays of water dotted about.
But we seem to have millions of lizards and I have been worrying about them getting trapped and possibly drowning. They enjoy flinging themselves off of the walls and have been known to end up in the watering can.
In order to provide the crazy lizards with a place of safety, I put an island (rock) in the middle of each tray. Then I added a gangplank that the lizards (or whatever) can climb onto in order to escape. hurrah - now I can rest easy.
I’ve not seen the hedgehogs drinking, but water is certainly there (everywhere) if they want it. 
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They like dog food.
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Thankfully, we have lots of natural stuff for the hedgehogs to eat.
If I put dog food out we would have every animal in the area on our patch.
The ones here get (help themselves to) cat food (the meat stuff)and seem to know when the bowls are being filled because they materialise as they are put down. Magpies, foxes and badgers like cat biscuits and cherries 
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Hedgehog’s are quite rare now, in the UK the population has fallen from 35 million in the 1950’s to about 1.5 million now, France has lost 60% of it’s hedgehog’s in a similar period.
This year has been amazing. We have a family (presumably) of 5 hedgehogs wandering around the village. Regular as clockwork, between 10pm and 11pm they emerge from an overgrown patch between 2 ruins… and potter all over the place including our terraces. Absolutely fascinating to watch their antics.
Grandson was staying with us a few weeks ago, very excited by his first sighting of “live” ones.
Last night, I only saw 1 hedgehog and I’m hoping the others are safe elsewhere. 
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There is one who likes to have her babies in the lavender in my garden, they come out in the late afternoon and potter about.
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We had an Airedale terrier that liked to run around the garden with a rolled up hedgehog in her mouth. The first couple of times it happened I worried about the hedgehog - extracted it from said Airedale’s mouth (heavy gardening gloves needed) and popped the rolled up ball over the fence in a safe place. It was never there the next morning, so I guess it unrolled and walked away. After that, I worried more about our Airedale, who used to come into the kitchen panting and dripping blood from her mouth to have the spines extracted. Fortunately, current dogs are content just to circle any hedgehog, barking loudly and can be enticed away.
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