La Carriere du Roy - a walk around a marble quarry and gorge

As I've got a tiny bit of my blogging mojo back, I am trying to work my way through some of our post lockdown walks to share some of the goodies that I've come across. Where we live now is both familiar and different as we are in the cross over zone of more northern flora and that of the Mediterranean area. However on this walk, which was across the plain and up into the foothills of where the Montagne Noir meets the Haut Languedoc range of hills/mountains, it was definitely different to where we live now. 

This was an area of garrigue and rocky hillsides opening up in one place to a gorge with magnificent views. There is a marble quarry here called La Carriere du Roy - the King's Quarry. There are walks all around and the red marble that is quarried is very apparent, and there are interesting modern sculptures dotted around created from it. The location is near Caunes-Minervois in the Aude department.

We first came here in late February with the Birding Languedoc organisation who run birding holidays and have started to do day trips with a professional guide, so it was one of these day trips that we joined. Our main target species was the Wallcreeper, and after hitting a blank at Minerve in the morning we came here after our picnic lunch. Many of the group had spotting scopes and as luck would have it, someone spotted a solitary wallcreeper right across the gorge on the far wall. It was just a blur that moved through my binocs but I could just about see it properly through a scope! Hopefully we will get to see one this coming winter now that we know of a couple of sites to look. A bit closer would be nice! 

So we decided to come back again to see what it was like here in the summer. It was June when we visited so I'm behind again with blogging as usual!

The gorge this summer looking each way.

Going back to February - after a mild winter the day was really pleasant and fairly warm, and there were quite a lot of plants flowering on the slopes of the garrigue. 

Strange, with this new Blogger layout there doesn't seem to be an option to caption your photos! This is a Cistus, though I don't know which one.

Iris

Tiny Narcissus

This is a view taken in February looking towards the Corbieres hills.

Same view though zoomed in a bit in June.

Keith walking along one of the many tracks with one of the marble sculptures.

In June sadly the cistus had gone over apart from a last few flowers here and there, so next year I would love to come back in late April/early May to see the hillsides covered in bloom. Damn that virus.

However there were still plenty of plants flowering, many of which I didn't know. Butterfly pics at end if flowers don't interest you!

I knew this was an allium but after a bit of research discovered it is Allium flavum, also known as Small Yellow Onion or Yellow-flowered Garlic (according to Wikipedia).

Here there are two types of sedum, Sedum album and Sedum sediforme. In the background the yellow flowered shrub is Bupleurum fruticosum or Shrubby Hare's-ear. You can click on the photo to see it bigger.

I recognise this plant as I think I've had it as a garden plant but can't remember what it is called.
Edit: it's White Rock-rose Helianthemum apenninum. Found it!

Here we have a mass of Scabious in the foreground, with Bupleurum fruticosum on the slope with a few Brooms. Imagine it with butterflies flitting about all over!

There were tons of butterflies but mostly just of two species, one of which was the Marbled White (Melanargia galathea).

However it was brilliant to spot this Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma). Not a lifer as I have seen one once before.

I've saved the best until last! The other butterfly that was prolific was the Great Banded Grayling, but it was very flitty and the only time one settled and I got a chance to get a photo, my SX50 just played up and I could not get it to focus! However I was quite pleased with this one just as it flew off.... (lol). They don't rest with their wings open so you only get to see the glimpse of black and white in flight.
 

Great Banded Grayling (Brintesia circe)

We have been out a number of times since then but at this time of year I have to watch the weather forecast, as I want a nice sunny day for the butterflies, but without much wind, and not much hotter than low 30s. There's usually only about one day a week like that!