Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 15 Gorges du Segre, France

We saw a spot suitable for eating our packed lunch down by the stream so I managed to scramble down the bank to sit on the rocks (note my blow up cushion, which I take everywhere! I still can't sit on hard things).

This is a Lackey Moth (Malacosoma neustria) caterpillar.

This picture shows where glaciers were 25,000 years ago, and you can see where we walked - from the Bains (thermal baths) of Llo, up the river valley, then around and over the hill where St Feliu is marked, then a steep slope down to the top of the village. You'll need to click on the photo to see the details.

This Pink was very bright and pretty though I have no idea what it is as there are umpteen species of wild Dianthus in Europe.

Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea).

The view. There was the worst haze I have ever seen - there should be mountains across the valley there! Yet we were in lovely warm sunshine so apart from the lack of views, it didn't matter.

Possibly a Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata). It has spotty leaves.

Keith is very good at taking photos of me with my eyes closed! 😀

Broad-leaved Marsh Orchid (Dactylorhiza majalis)

My favourite flower of the day was this Black-eyed Heron's Bill (Erodium glandulosum). Erodiums are related to the Cranesbill Geraniums, but much smaller plants.

Houseleeks, one of the host plants of the Apollo butterfly, along with sedums. The one on the right and bottom is the Cobweb Houseleek (Sempervivum arachnoideum). The other one that is flowering I am not sure but could be the Common Houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum).

We decided not to hike up this steep hill to the remains of the chapel called St Feliu, which you can just see at the top. We wouldn't have had a better view up there due to the haze.

Another Fritillary that I can't ID. Without pictures of the underwings, Fritillaries are very difficult to ID. This might actually be the same species as the unknown one in the previous post.

Another photo by Keith - this time it's a Robber Fly with prey of Provence Orange Tip butterfly.

The only part of the walk that I didn't like was the very steep descent back to Llo, and I thank goodness that I had my alpine stick to help. I find steep slippery slopes terrifying - the last thing I want to do is land on my bum! 😱

We came out at the top of the village. I just love this kind of old rounded slate tile that is still seen here and there in old villages in the mountains.

Down at the bottom of the village with the old ruin of La Tour del Vacaro in view on a hillside.

Back to where we parked near the Thermal Baths. Our route started off to the right out of this picture.

Well what a day! Other species of butterfly seen but not photographed:

Speckled Wood
Provence Orange Tip
Orange Tip
Black Veined White
Large White
Comma
Spanish Gatekeeper
Brimstone
Cleopatra
Clouded Yellow
Painted Lady
Red Admiral
White Admiral (or Southern White Admiral)
Small Heath
Wood White 

Total approx 26 species for the day. 💜 The good thing is that this place is only 2.5 hours from home, so I certainly want to come back again, though I would like to walk further along the paved road towards the refuge next time.

The next day we went home, via Villefranche de Conflent, another Vauban citadel not far from Mont Louis. I don't have any great photos from there so I am winding up this travelogue with a final photo of me with a very strangely presented chicken kebab!!!

I hope you have enjoyed coming along on our travels with us. Many thanks to those of you who comment and let me know, or like on facebook. 

Pyrenees Trip June 2024 - Part 14 Gorges du Segre, France

This was the last full day of our holiday, and it was perfect. So perfect, it made up for the not so good weather during the first couple of weeks, and the lack of interesting fauna and flora.

We headed to Llo, where I had read about a circular gorge walk that sounded interesting and just about the right length for me (about 7km/4 miles).

We followed a quiet paved road which lead uphill, but not steeply. In any event, there was so much stopping to look at the wildflowers and butterflies that the uphill wasn’t a problem!

The first butterfly I saw was this one below, one I’d never seen before. It was perched on one of its host plants, a Cranesbill Geranium. The sides of the road had lots of large flowered Cranesbills along it, not something I see very often in the wild.

Alpine Saxifrage (Saxifraga paniculata)
Geranium Argus butterfly (Eumedonia eumedon) * (a lifer!)
Either Common Spotted (Dactylorhiza maculata subsp. fuchsii) or Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata). I can’t tell the difference and as you will see, I saw many that are one or the other (or indeed, something else!). The ones where I took photos of the leaves had spotty leaves.

Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia)

All along the way we walked beside this mountain stream, the Segre.

Above and below: either Heath Spotted or Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza species)

Yet more lifers! I saw five on this day! Asterisk denotes a lifer.
Iberian Marbled White (Melanargia lachesis) *
Pearly Heath (Coenonympha arcania) *
Unknown Fritillary

Round-leaved Restharrow (Ononis rotundifolia). I thought this was a delightfully pretty plant.

Apollo (Parnassius apollo). This is the butterfly we have been longing to see for years. It’s not a lifer as we saw some in the Jura mountains above Geneva more than 20 years ago, but we weren't into photography much back then, and didn’t have a digital camera at that time, which helps i.e. taking loads of pics! There were tons of Apollos flying about along this road and up the gorge banks. 💜

These are Keith’s images, as mine were not so close up.

Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia).

Piedmont Ringlet (Erebia meolans) * This butterfly took a liking to K’s foot, and jumped onboard to drink some of his sweat!

Unknown Blue butterflies. I'm not sure if they are the same species though they look similar. Possibly Amanda's Blue?
Alpine Saxifrage (Saxifraga paniculata)

Below is the only building we came across, a farmhouse called Mas Patiras.

Large Wall Brown (Lasiommata maera) * Slightly larger and lighter than the regular Wall Brown.

We came to where we turned off the paved road at a bridge and looked around for somewhere around the stream to have our picnic lunch. The rest is in the next post.

Relief map showing the Cerdagne and the places that we went to. Not marked is Llivia and its hill, where we went in the last post, bottom left.

Remember those cracks in my bedroom ceiling?

Which I spent ages repairing that winter? Well what I didn't tell you was that it all cracked open again the next summer. Wet weather and the cracks close up (though not completely), dry weather and they open up again. There were also some cracks on the outside of the house at that end, the garage gable end. That blog post is here, but you will have to scroll past the bird photos at the beginning to see the decorating bit.

There wasn't much we could do about this so just shrugged it off until we started reading about lots of other people having similar problems after that drought summer of 2022. However in order to claim off the insurance, the commune had to declare the area a 'catastrophe naturelle'. Eventually they did so, so we decided to give it a go, not really expecting much to come of it. 

A lady came around and had a good look around, couldn't see anything immediately to blame so she said she would arrange for various experts to come out and run some tests.

I can't remember what all these different people did, but one lot was looking for water leaks, and the last lot, by which time we were not holding out much hope any more, was doing a soil test. Result! (Actually a bit of common sense here...) The house is built on clay (we knew that) and it dried out more than usual during that very hot dry summer, causing the cracks. Actually the ones in our bedroom had already been there, they just got a lot worse.

So fast forward a bit of time and this June we will be having remedial works on the house. Basically underpinning the foundations of the basement load bearing walls by resin injection (a lot less work and mess than proper concrete underpinning). However I freaked when I discovered this work would take place INSIDE the house, and they'd be drilling down through our tiled floor in both the garage and the spare bedroom. I calmed down when they said that they would retile the floors afterwards!

They are also making a concrete 'pavement' all around three sides of the house running from the house for about 1 metre wide, sloping slightly so that rainwater is directed away from the foundations.

Then they will wait two years and see if anything moves. If it doesn't, then the cracks will be repaired and the house will be repainted on three sides. Our bedroom will also get the repair and repaint job. We have asked for them to paint the fourth exterior side (living room and pool side, not built over a basement) at our expense, as it will be cheaper as they will already be there with scaffolding etc. 

Our expenses will be 3000 Euros excess plus the expense of a removal company to come and pack/load all the crap in the garage and workroom and the spare bedroom furniture and store it for several weeks, then bring back here again. Plus the pool side exterior painting which we are choosing to have done. Given that these works are costing approx 150,000 Euros (of which it is 15,000 E just for exterior painting of three sides of the house), I think we have got off quite lightly!! 

Unfortunately though, it has meant the end of my shrubs out the front of the house beside the wall. We were also told that the fruit trees in the back garden were too close to the house and would have to go (there's a certain height a tree can be related to how far it is from the house and they far surpass that). Trees grow, and even though we have pruned back the fruit trees a bit, cherries like to grow and want to be big - and they suck up the moisture in the soil. We would never have planted them so close to a building, but other people just don't think ahead 15-20 years or more when they plant little saplings.

We were very lucky that a local gardener was able to come out very promptly and do the work for us, at a very reasonable price. He did in a day what would have taken us weeks!

So bye bye to my two wonderful cherry trees and the greengage tree, and also our bay tree out the front. Stupidly I forgot to cut a few branches for drying, but I'll be buying a bay tree to grow in a pot.

Looking back five years to this photo below.

30th Jan 2025. You can see that we already took out the two smallest plum trees, which never produced anything much, and what they did produce always had grubs in. You can see how much taller the cherries were - and see how much our oleander hedge has grown too, which is a good thing for privacy. (The neighbour's pool used to be in full view of our kitchen window, now I can see none of it).

During the work.

And after. We were really impressed by the gardener who left all the wood stacked and really cleaned up after himself. Plus he was nice and friendly!

Note also the home made bird feeder which Keith has made for our birds as the feeders used to hang in the tree there. They are still feeding like crazy and we like happy birdies!

The day before I was moving gravel away from the plants that I wanted to keep.

During. The nice gardener had offered to dig up the plants that I wanted to keep which I had only planted about three years ago - a couple of lavenders, a Mexican Fleabane and a Sea Lavender that was already there, plus a bit of Vinca which had a flower on already. 

He tried to dig up the Skimmia to take home himself but gave up as the roots were just too vast and the shrub wouldn't have transplanted losing all the roots that would have had to be cut away in order to move it. Shame.

He brought a shredder which made quick work of getting rid of both the shrubs and the smaller tree branches.

And after. So bare, so sad!

God, the house looks so filthy now! It's going to look so much better after painting. The plan out the front is to lay gravel over the concrete that is laid in the front and put pretty pots there - I'll buy some decorative plastic ones and paint them, or some of them, in the bright blue that I like. For some reason that colour is out of fashion in the garden centres and I haven't seen that glaze available for several years now. Obviously the pots will have plants in!