Dippers up in the mountains

This was the first time we had been up into the Pyrenees since we bought our house! We'd stayed near Tarascon-sur-Ariège after we made an offer on our house and enjoyed the mountains for about five days, but since then, just not got around to exploring further. 

So we chose to show my brother around in the area within driving distance from here in one day. We first headed to Tarascon which is only one hour from home, and stopped to have a walk around and explore the centre of this small town. 

We headed up to the clocktower to have a look; the backstreets were very quiet although there were still a handful of tourists.

It wasn't too much of a climb up there and the views were well worth it! The 'Castella Tower' was erected in the 18thC and built on the site of an old medieval keep.

It's certainly a scenic town. The river is the Ariège, from where the departmental name comes. Most of the departments in France are named after the major rivers running through them.

After we had a wander around we set off along the Ariège river valley to the next small town of Ax-les-Thermes, but decided to go higher into the mountains to L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre, which is very close to the border of Andorra. We found a layby to have our picnic lunch but by then it had started to cloud over and as we went higher it got colder and colder. The river was full of rocks and was perfect Dipper territory, so we spent some time searching, but in vain. However, finding several clumps of Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale) in the layby picnic area almost made up for it.

Hospitalet was nothing to write home about, in fact, it was downright ugly and a waste of time apart from using the convenient public loo which happened to be beside where we parked! By this time the temperature was down to about 13C so we were very happy to head back down to warmer temps! Though for the first time ever I started to feel a bit icky from the winding mountain roads. Strange, as I have never had travel sickness before, except on boats.

Ax-les-Thermes was higher up than Tarascon-sur-Ariège and not as attractive, but the main feature for us was the Ariège river rushing through the town, with another couple of small rivers running into it. The Lauze river runs into it just uphill of this bridge, and in the picture below this one, you can see a stream called the Oriège joining it too.

It was quite interesting looking at the backs of the houses and seeing their little terraces and balconies overlooking the river. I do wonder what it is like in winter when the rivers must be much fuller, and especially in the spring when the snow is melting! I would be a bit worried having a house so close as the stream must at times be up over the basement walls of the houses!

Again this was perfect Dipper territory so we spent some time looking at the river. I first noticed some Mallards in the small stream, then we saw the usual White Wagtails (Motacilla alba) flitting from rock to rock, wagging their tails. We also saw a female Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) looking very handsome with her bright yellow plumage, but I didn't get a chance for a decent photo. The next two photos are Keith's as his were much better than mine!

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Suddenly though, guess what we saw? Yay, a Dipper! In fact there were several of them and we spent quite a lot of time watching them and taking photos. We then had a little explore of the 'town' (more of a village really), but there wasn't a lot to it. We then went back to Dipper watching. My poor brother was probably bored to tears, but hell, we hadn't seen a Dipper since we lived near Geneva (which was before our 15 years in Brittany), where we had them in the local stream across the road from us! For those reading who don't know this, Dippers (Cinclus cinclus) are birds that can actually swim under water and dive under searching for their food. They are continually diving in and jumping out onto the rocks - so very hard to get shots of unless you have a super fast shutter speed (which I couldn't do because it was cloudy and my camera is rubbish on an ISO over 400). I just took loads of photos in the hope and did get some half decent ones I was pleased with. 😀 The main thing was that we got to see them.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

I had never been so lucky before to watch them diving and popping out of the water - they do this continually and they are very fast! This water is really flowing quickly too; it may not be very deep but they must really be strong! When standing they bob up and down as well like a number of other birds which I always find amusing.

Finally we dragged ourselves away from the Dippers and headed in the direction of home. First though, to get out of Ax, we ended up going higher and higher up a very winding road to the Col de Chioula at 1432m altitude, and after a little while we found ourselves in the Pays de Sault. This is the part of our department, Aude, which is in the actual Pyrenees chain. It's a plateau area between 990 to 1310 metres altitude and is very rural with arable fields on the flat areas.

We had decided to head to a large lake, Lac Montbel, that I see on the map south of home, just to see if it was of interest. It wasn’t really, although as it’s a reservoir it was extremely low which is a bit worrying. We could see loads of old tree roots from the drowned trees when the reservoir was created. I think the crumbling tarmac track must have been a drowned road. Someone was swimming but in order to enter the water you had to wade through mud, no thanks! There is a hide or ‘observatoire ornithologique’ marked on the map at the small end of the lake on the other side of the barrage where the water is full, but time was getting on so we decided to leave that for another day. 

Then we headed home, having had a wonderful, scenic and interesting day out!

A day out in Gruissan

I'm going back to September and the first trip out with my brother, to Gruissan on the coast near Narbonne. We have driven through many times but have never stopped to explore this pretty little village with a 10th century tower keeping guard over it all.

The 'Tour Barberousse' (Redbeard Tower) is the only remnant of a 10th C. castle built to keep a look out over the sea and lagoons and guard against invasions headed towards Narbonne. It was enlarged in the 12th Century but unfortunately ordered to be dismantled by Richelieu in the 16thC and has been left neglected ever since. For tourists and photographers however, it provides a wonderful view in all directions from Gruissan over the lagoons, salt pans, mountains and the ocean!

After a delicious lunch we headed up to the tower, which wasn't such a climb really, apart from some steep steps in the rock which my pathetically weak legs would have had a problem with if it hadn't been for the railings to hold onto!

Hmmm, so it was only half a tower! 😀

View towards the marina, and beyond, the salt pans, the working ones of which are pink coloured.

Lagoon on the left, and ocean in the far distance.

Looking inland at the start of the Canal de Sainte Marie. This lagoon (the Etang de Gruissan) in the foreground often has flamingos in the summer, but there weren't any this time. My brother hadn't seen flamingos in the wild, so we were hoping to see some (we did, on a later trip!).

Random photographer at the top of the hill. 😀

Back down in the town, we headed for the salt pans to visit the Salin de l'Ile Saint Martin, which has guided tours for those who are interested, a restaurant beside the pink salt pans, and a fabulous shop selling amongst other gastronomic things, a lot of sea salt! The best thing about it, was the help yourself flavoured salt counter, where there were about 30 different salts all flavoured with very interesting things. 

It's like pick and mix sweeties, you take a bag, scoop out as much salt as you want, then put it in the bag and seal it up with a sticker which reminds you which flavour you chose. I picked rosemary salt (looking forward to covering roast potatoes with that!), bay leaf salt, which I thought would go very well with fish, and mild chilli salt and cumin salt (both perfect for Indian raitas and Tex-Mex salsas). 

There are salt pans galore along the coast in the Aude department but not all are in current use. Those are the ones that wading birds tend to use and are not pink. I'm not sure if they come and feed in these pink salt pans, because I don't really fancy salt flavoured with bird poo 😀😂😀, but it's the algae in these waters that are the reason that some flamingos are pink! As juveniles the ones that live around here are white and grey/brown, but become more pink as they age. That's because they eat both the algae in the waters, and the small shrimp that feed on the algae, both of which contain carotenoid pigments.

Below is quite a small mound of salt compared to some of the salt works along the coast!

The water was very thick and lumpy, I am guessing it was the salt forming. I rather liked the fish skeleton art in the pool, don't you? 😀

As we left Gruissan and headed inland, a flock of large birds flew in front of us and landed in a field next to the road. Luckily there was somewhere to pull over, because they were White Stork (Ciconia ciconia), presumably stopping for a quick feed on their migration route. 

Thousands of White Stork are seen migrating in the autumn by the LPO watchers on a nearby hill called the Roc de Conilhac. We did actually stop up there afterwards and had a chat with the migration watchers. They have a board listing the birds seen flying overhead and how many. We were actually there on a day with a NW wind which is the ideal bird spotting conditions (as the wind keeps the birds in a narrow area as they don't want to cross over the water so hug the coast flying southwards), but nope, nothing in the sky at that time! It's a breezy old place and only one large bush for shelter against hot sun or cold wind but these people volunteer to watch for birds for several months during the autumn. In the spring they also watch for migrating birds, but in a different location, at Leucate cliffs.

Nothing to do with our day out, but I have had this photo sitting about since August wanting to post it, so it's going here! This is a Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) and it was resting on the wall of the house just near the garage. It didn't move all the time I was taking photos, and I was very close, so I can only guess it was ether very tired or had just recently eclosed, which is the best time to take macros of butterflies (having seen how flitty a Swallowtail is normally compared to the ones I raised when I first put them outside and they just sat still). 😀

Our family visitors are leaving shortly to head up into the high mountains before the snow comes, so I should be able to catch up a bit more soon!

No time to blog!

Hi guys!

I'm still around and have loads to blog about, but haven't found any time recently! My brother has just left after spending two weeks with us, and now my brother and sister in law have just arrived! They came earlier than expected because they are travelling around in their camping car, which needs a replacement fridge because it has been leaking fluid and doesn't work any more. So they have arranged to get a new one fitted at a dealership in Castelnaudary at the end of the week. So I've no idea when I will get a chance to write about the various interesting outings we have made during September.

Sorry I haven't visited other blogs either - nearly all require me to be on my main computer in order to comment, and I've barely been near it. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up during the day whilst my bro and sis in law are out exploring Cathar castles etc on their own! 

Until then, I'll leave you with this photo of my brother and me, which my dear husband kindly entitled "Couple of old cows" 😁, and see you soon. xx