We’ve just had three lovely warm sunny days with no wind, so to make the most we visited the Cite of Carcassone yesterday. We had lunch out, then visited the inner castle and walked around half of the ramparts, giving us lovely views of the mountains and countryside all around, not to mention the interior of the old medieval town.
We took many more photos, but these are just a few to say Merry Christmas and wish you all a happy and healthy festive period.
I’ve been a bit busy, but once Boxing Day is over I will take time to visit your blogs! Sorry I have got behind on catching up with you all! 😘😄
All best wishes
Mandy and Keith xx
Keith standing and my brother sitting, squinting because of the sun!
I'm putting both these sites on one post so it's a bit photo heavy!
The first is just south of the city of Valencia, near a lagoon known as L'Albufera. The site, called Racó de l'Olla, is about 50 hectares in size but the area where visitors can go is quite small, however there is a useful visitor centre and the reserve was full of birds when we visited. There is an observation tower above the visitor centre, where I am taking a photo in the image below. There are a number of small lakes, some with islands or scrapes for birds to nest or just rest on. Also very useful were lots of info panels telling you the names of the most common shrubs and trees, most of which of course I didn't know from adam.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Looking towards the main lagoon.
I was looking at the water in one of the smaller ponds and thinking, yuk, that's really murky around the edges. I then looked down and read the info board in front of me, and it all became clear. Read it - it explains all about the ecosystem of the lagoons and ponds. Click to view larger if necessary.
You might remember me mentioning the Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) which perched near me when I was in a hide - here are a few more shots of it. I can't get the colour any better than this in Lightroom, as it was very backlit so I had to really overexpose my images, and we were looking through glass. I'm still happy with the shots though. 😀
A bit later it then landed on the other (sunny) side of the hide, and I just managed a few quick shots not even very zoomed in, before it flew off. Such is life! It proves how important it is to take photos AS you zoom in, not just wait until you have zoomed in fully. You may well miss many shots that way!
This is a female Red-veined Darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii). I found a new site which is very useful, called Odo-nutters, which has good info about ID, always necessary when immature and female dragonflies can look so different to mature male ones!
Of course there were Flamingos!
Photo credit: Keith Allen
The waders in this shot are mostly Ruffs, though there are also Black Winged Stilts, Mallards and Little Egrets in the background.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
A closer up view of the Ruffs below, with a couple of Redshanks (the birds with red legs). In another shot there were some Little Stints, and a small Plover, not sure if one of the Ringed Plovers or a Kentish Plover, but it isn't worth sharing as they were quite distant.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Moving on to the area across the road from our campsite, which was only a few kms from the bird reserve. Here it is very interesting as all this area had started to be developed with the tourist boom in the 1960s, then it was decided by the powers that be that it would be returned to the wild. There were info boards explaining this with photos of bulldozers getting rid of tons of concrete, and then the double dune system (see photo further down) was restored and - I'm not sure if it was replanted or left to nature to do its thing - looks very mature now.
Taken from this pdf which explains all about this area, known as Devesa:
"The process of urban development almost destroyed the Devesa as a natural space, but at the end of the 1970s the process of development was stopped and in 1980 the Valencia City Council created the Devesa-Albufera Technical Office which was responsible for the management, conservation and recovery of the space."
Lovely wide walking/cycling paths were laid through the dune slack area (the flat area between the dunes) leading to the beach, the bird reserve and a small lagoon near the sea.
This is the dune system. The sea is on the left and the Albufera lagoon on the right, with the lagoon side dune being more soil than sand, whereas the beach side one was more sand, thus different species of plants would grow in each habitat, and different creatures would inhabit each area. The whole area here is a narrow spit between the sea and the lagoon.
Me near the small lagoon, which you can just see.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
In this picture you can just see the city of Valencia in the background.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Now we move much further south to the bottom end of the Valencian Comunidad near the border with Murcia, to a reserve called El Hondo (also known as El Fondo!). There is only a small area close to the visitor centre itself, although there are several other long paths you can follow, but trying to make sense of the maps it seems so you have to return the same way. There is another area which is closed off though I understand you can contact them to ask for permission to enter, but we didn't have time to do that.
We saw two lifers - both were species that we had read about before coming, which was why we came here! At the visitor centre there was a small pond which was visible through a huge glass window. Here were the Marbled Ducks (Marmaronetta angustirostris) that we had heard about, and also quite a few Purple Gallinules, oblivious to us watching them.
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Photo credit: Keith Allen
I managed this shot of a Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio porphyrio) through the glass.
Further along the walk were dozens of coots and the second target species was a Red-knobbed Coot (Fulica cristata) - have you ever heard of them? Keith hadn't, but I think I have seen them in my bird book. To ID them we had to scan through all the dozens of coots, not something I've ever done before as coots are normally so common one doesn't really bother much about them! 😀 We found several of the Red-knobbed ones eventually. They really do look rather strange with the red appendage on the top of their heads!
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Photo credit: Keith Allen
The icing on the cake at this site was seeing an African Monarch (Danaus chrysippus) again! I saw one by a beach in the Ebro Delta some years back which really confused me as I'd never heard of this species before. I was talking to our bird expert from Birding Languedoc recently and she said she had seen one once on the coast in the Languedoc, so they do get as far north as France occasionally.
Phew, did you manage to get to the end? Bravo to you! I put the different birding areas together as I haven't blogged for a while, so whilst I'm in the mood I'd better get it all done! I've also been busy wielding my paintbrush on walls again, although I have only done 1/4 of the room, because we wanted to get replace a hideous 1970s G-Plan corner cabinet that we inherited with the house. In its place is now a modern Ikea cubby unit with space for photos/ornaments and plenty of drawers and cupboards for all our photography gear. It's nice having everything properly organised for the first time!
My brother is coming soon, so I've got lots of things to do, like decorate, bake and housework, but I'll make sure I find time to come back to blogland to say something seasonal and visit your blogs. 😀
Time for a break from holiday photos and a catch up with the garden.
These photos are from July, August and September, and I'll post them in date order. Back in July I saw this young Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) walking along the wall of the house. It was only about 4cm long.
I've seen some new to the garden butterflies this summer, the first of which I was really pleased to see - the Lulworth Skipper (Thymelicus acteon)! They used to love my lavender at the last house too.
I'm not sure what this butterfly is below, possibly a Common Blue. I only saw its underside.
True Bugs. Left is a Fire Bug (Pyrrhocoris apterus), known in France as a Gendarme. Middle top and bottom is a Red Shield Bug (Carpocoris mediterraneus), presumably not in its final instar which will be red, and right is a seed bug called Spilostethus pandurus.
The geraniums looked great for a couple of months until the naughty Geranium Bronze butterflies had their wicked way with them, but by then the Bidens which was also in many of the pots took over. Bidens is the orangey flowering plant in the foreground - and they are still looking like this now in November, although the flowers have turned a darker orange. What a great plant! There is also a Lantana amongst these plants - all the Lantanas survived the winter and have been flowering around the pool all summer and some still have flowers on even now.
August and the tomatoes and chillies were doing well.
I made four new tomato plants from the side shoots which had grown whilst we were away in June; it's a great way to get free plants so long as you can propagate this way early enough to get a crop.
I was so happy to see flowers on my Lagerstroemia shrub as it's the first time it has bloomed since we moved here. I love these shrubs so much I even bought a new one as I'd given up on this one! Guess what? They both had flowers on this year! I'm not sure why the leaves were this colour, they do seem to be more of a copper colour but I think the intensity is due to the dry conditions. The ones I see when driving around all have green leaves though.
Now onto September: Me and my shadow. 😀 I didn't want to crop the picture! This is the first summer for the Nectar Bar and it's done remarkably well given the dry conditions. We did start watering after a while as some plants were not doing well, even so, it's fairly impossible to water enough, and with our water restrictions we couldn't use the hose after about July/August. You can see how dry the grass was!
We had a decent rainfall at the end of September which has greened things up a lot, but since then only small amounts of rain, so most of the trees and shrubs this autumn are just a dull yellowy brown. October (whilst we were away!) was also a warm month, so there haven't been any frosts yet, which I think also help with autumn leaf colour.
This end was quite full and floral compared to the other end. I had no idea the Gaura would be so big, and the Sage 'Hot Lips' (foreground) has flowered its face off from about June to now. The other sages haven't got as established and are much smaller.
It felt quite autumnal when the berries formed on the Pyracantha hedge!
These garlic chives in a pot will be divided up and moved to my Nectar Bar next spring. The ones in my herb bed have self seeded and the new plants are already flowering! Insects love them, the flowers look great, and the leaves are of course, garlic flavoured chives! Win win. 👍
Another new to the garden butterfly has been the Brown Argus (Aricia agestis). I first spotted a pair mating when I didn't have a camera with me, but luckily I saw them again. I'm not sure if this is a male or female, as they both have sex brands (the dark mark on upper forewing).
The third butterfly I saw was a Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus). I saw one in my garden in Brittany so it's not a lifer, but still special. I saw one in the garden again since we came back from holiday, at the beginning of November, but I didn't have a camera either time!
Then there is this one, who for the life of me I cannot ID! It's old and worn, with the outer white edges of the wings worn away, but mostly it's the white markings at the bottom of the upper hindwings which puzzle me. It also has the extra markings on the underside of the forewing which not many Blues have. It's possible it is an Adonis Blue?? Hmmmm. 😕
A final photo of a 5-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena trifolii).
You can see that the most popular nectar plants for butterflies and moths are Lavender, Perovskia (aka Russian Sage), and Sedum. I'm looking forward to this Sedum growing bigger in the future. Given that I have spring bulbs planted, and there are still plants flowering, it looks like I should get about eight to nine months of nectar for the insects! 👍😀
P.S. Whilst we are on an insect post, do you remember this caterpillar I came across back in April, which was crossing the road? I've since discovered that it's the larva of the Glanville Fritillary butterfly!
Finally - phew, it is SO much easier blogging on my desktop, compared to my ipad!!! 😀
About halfway through our trip, we stayed three nights in L’Albir, which is at the other end of the bay from busier Altea. Altea however has a very pretty old town and I have lots of photos from that visit, which I’ll sort out when home. So for now, I’ll take you along this 5km there and back walk to the lighthouse of Albir, which looks back over the whole bay area.
The path was fantastic, nice flat even concrete so you can walk along admiring the scenery without having to watch for rocks or roots which invariably trip me if I’m not careful on most walks! The downside was that it was part cloudy and very hazy the morning that we walked here. It seemed very humid in L’Albir, so we wanted to get our exercise out of the way in the cooler morning! It did clear a bit along the way, so we were hugging the shady side on the way back.
Altea zoomed in above, and K at the beginning of the walk with L’Albir in the background below.
Below, Mediterranean Heather (pink flowers) and Rosemary flowering everywhere on the rocky garrigue.
(A side note: I don’t know what’s going on here but since all the insects in my first post there have been very few, and south of Valencia I have barely seen a bee or hoverfly on all these flowers (between the native plants and the foreign species in bloom in people's gardens/campsites) - only a few wasps, flies and mossies. Crickets have been making their summery noise at night when we pass wasteland on the way to a restaurant but apart from that, and a few Red Admirals and White butterflies, virtually nothing! OK, it’s late October, but it’s about 28C during the day and mild at night. It’s just very weird - and disappointing!)
You can just see the lighthouse at the top middle of the photo below. If you click to view larger, it will be clearer.
There used to be an ochre mine here in the 19thC through to early 20thC. Info is given in English in the following photo on the info board (click to view larger if you can’t read it).
There was a good photographic display about the families who worked at the lighthouse, which was difficult to access back in the olden days. Two families would live in this building, with the two lighthouse keepers.
You can see the path running left to right through the middle section of the photo.
Lavandula dentata, which PlantNet calls French Lavender; however I always thought that was the Papillon Lavender, which is L. stoechas. I haven’t seen this species of Lavender growing wild before.
We are enjoying our last week and started heading back north today, first stop the Ebro Delta for a couple of nights and some birding around the lagoons and rice paddies. 😄
