Mt Aigoual and Mt Lozere

After visiting the Cirque de Navacelles, we headed north towards Mt Aigoual, the highest point in the Gard department (on border with Lozere dept) at 1565m, up in the southern Massif Central. I took some photos with my phone as we were driving along.

Up on the top of Mt Aigoual it was noticeably cooler, not a bad thing after the day's heat! There is a meteorological observatory up here which was built in 1894. The museum wasn't open on this day, but we didn't have a lot of time to spare anyway, as it was already nearly 6pm when we got here.

I think this view is looking south towards the Med.

The hillside was covered in thyme - lovely to see it again as it is flowering from March on the garrigue by the coast! There were lots of Small Tortoiseshells and the occasional Painted Lady, as in this photo (two S. Tortoiseshells and a P. Lady in the middle).

View looking the other way - I think this was north, ish.

I often take photos of info boards to read later, and despite the museum being closed, there was plenty of info on the four boards. Here's a map showing where we are and also our destination the next day, Mt Lozere. It also shows where Millau is and the different Grands Causses where we were before, with info underneath in English. You'll have to click to view the map larger, of course!

It says that the Clouded Apollo is found here, though we didn't see one. How you would know though if a mostly white butterfly flew by, I don't know. I need to see the markings.

A final photo from the day on our way to our campsite at Florac.

The next day we headed to the Mt Lozere area, also in the Cevennes National Park. I think this is the high peak, but I wasn't going to walk all the way up there to see if there was an info board.... 😁

It was all change from the mostly chalklands we had been in before. Here the soil was acidic and covered in bilberries (native blueberries with purple flesh). I remember picking them with my brother when we were teenagers on a holiday in the Haute Loire department, and bringing pounds of them home with us. I stewed it all up and we made delicious ice lollies from the juice.

Below is a lovely little mountain spring with moss covered rocks. 

After Mt Lozere we were headed in the direction of the Ardeche, down on much flatter lands beside the Ardeche river. Again it was a very hot day, so the walk I had originally planned we ditched, preferring to head to the campsite and chill out.

Above and below are where we stopped for lunch.

A bit of luck to see a Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia) again! I think I have seen one in recent years, so it wasn't a lifer, but even so, there are not many fritillaries that I have seen more than once or twice!

This lovely moth landed on the windscreen as we were driving along and stayed there about five minutes. I was very lucky with the ID, as by chance I saw one posted somewhere else so I know it is a Speckled Yellow (Pseudopanthera macularia)!

I don't have any more photos, but when we arrived at the campsite beside the river, it was absolutely boiling hot and the campsite was so much fuller than the others we had stayed at. Apparently many Germans come here and return year after year. Our campsite was close to the town of Vallon Pont d'Arc, a very touristy area close to the Ardeche gorges and the famous rock bridge, the Pont d'Arc. That's all to come in the next post!

Cirque de Navacelles and butterflies galore!

This day finally dawned nice and warm and sunny, just what you want on holiday! We headed south to this gorge that I was really looking forward to seeing. It was every bit as spectacular (and more) in real life as it was in the pics I had seen. There are quite a number of belvederes (scenic viewpoints) on both sides of the gorge, so we stopped at this first one overlooking the little village of Navacelles, which is on the border of the Gard and Herault departments.

  Part of an info board explaining about meanders with a bit in English.

Looking to the right up the gorge and part of the road that we took to get to the other side!

Blue Spot Hairstreak (Satyrium spini). This was a lifer for me and I saw it on both sides of the gorge. In the first photo I took the image with my dslr and a 'normal' lens, so was able to crop in a lot, but you can actually see the blue spot better in this image than the ones below, which I took with my SX50 which I used on the south side of the gorge.

Driving up the other side of the gorge I took some photos with my phone. You can see where we stopped on the north side at the long flat building in the middle of the flat bit on top of the gorge, though you will probably have to view this large to see properly!

The road was absolutely fine in a 7m motorhome, though we didn't venture into the little village itself. I thought that might have been chancing it as I had read that it wasn't recommended to go down there in a moho. I hadn't realised that the road continued up the other side though, so I thought it might mean just that last part to the village. Yes it is steep, but no worse than anything else we have done in a moho up in the mountains of Spain and France. On the way there were clouds of butterflies flitting about, especially noticeable were what looked like the Black Satyr butterflies which were en masse on some particular pink flowered plants along the way. However, sadly there is nowhere to stop in a vehicle on either side of the gorge. For once, I felt envious of the many cyclists we saw because they could stop wherever they liked! 😀

We pulled into a parking area near one of the belvederes to have some lunch, but I was straight out with my camera as there were butterflies about! The first species I noticed were quite a number of Black Veined Whites (Aporia crataegi), not a butterfly I have seen very often. They were very flitty so hard to get a decent shot.

This next one puzzled me at first, but I think it's a Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) that is newly eclosed, as the underwings are still wrinkled, and it has the black and white markings on the edges of the wings like a Marbled White. I think its colouring is just darkening up as it matures - you can just about see some slightly darker markings appearing. 

On the left is a Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), and the right is a Spanish Gatekeeper (Pyronia bathseba).

A Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris). I can see the red underneath the tip of the antennae, differentiating it from the Essex Skipper, whose antennae are all black on the tips.

Surprisingly, these butterflies were active in the shade here on this Knapweed (I didn't mind being in the shade of a shrub at all!). Here we have the Spanish Gatekeeper and two Marbled Whites.

Then I noticed this Fritillary, which upon a bit of IDing, I think is a Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia), and it's sharing the flower with one of the Burnet Moths. I'm not sure which one, as there are so many different red and black ones! 

Marbled White, Heath Fritillary and Burnet Moth.

I made this collage to show the underwings and top side of the Heath Fritillary.

This is also from the family of Zygaenidae which are the Burnet and Forester moths - it's a Green Forester Moth (Adscita statices), the first time I've seen one.

Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma).

We finally spotted a Black Satyr (Satyrus actaea)* up on the top of the gorge, but it went underneath a shrub in heavy shade. I had to seriously overexpose this image to get the markings on the underwings, resulting in a rather noisy shot, which wasn't very sharp anyway. But it was a lifer for me, so it's here as a record shot. 😀

* It is possible this might be a Great Sooty Satyr, as I am no expert.

This wasn't even the end of the day, as we travelled further which I will document in my next post, as this one is quite long enough. But if you like butterflies, you won't mind that! 😀💕

Chaos de Montpellier le Vieux, and Puncho d'Agast, near Millau

The campsite at Millau was my favourite - the pitches were huge, plenty of shade and birdlife, and as we were next to the Dourbie river, we had a lot of semi tame Mallards! Malcolm said he found a couple sleeping just outside his tent on the first morning! As we always had some old bread with us, I thought I'd see if they would eat from my hand. Only just! It was fun though, watching them. We started with two ducks and within ten minutes we had seven of them. 😀

On the second day at Millau we visited the Chaos de Montpellier le Vieux. I already shared a few photos from my ipad but here are a few more.

Info board (actually in decent English!) about the gorge behind me. This is the Gorge de la Dourbie river - it's one side of the Causse Noir where we were, and the vulture museum in the Gorge de la Jonte was the other side of the Causse Noir. The Causses are limestone plateaus, and there are five of them in this area. Some are a part of the Cevennes National Park. See the map below. Millau is at the tip of the Causse Noir, where the Tarn and Dourbie rivers meet.

Image credit: Paysage Aveyron

There were plenty of plants in flower and due to the altitude, were behind the flowering season of plants down nearer sea level. As well as many garrigue plants, I came across two orchids. I don't have a close up of this one, but it came back on PlantNet as 11% likely to be Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea). Now I wish I’d sniffed it!

This next one was easier to ID, it is Red Helleborine (Cephalanthera rubra).

Some of the faces in rocks: I think this next is the one they called 'Cyrano's Nose' (i.e. Cyrano de Bergerac, who had a long nose). I think it also looks like a Toby Jug, though I'm not sure about the chimney coming out of the back of the head. 😂

I don't know what this next one was called, if at all, but I see two faces, sideways on, with their chins jutting out. The one closest is wearing a mask (the trees). Or they could be skulls, the tree part being the eye socket. Depends which way I look at them. What do you see? 😀

Before heading back down to Millau we stopped at the far tip of the Causse Noir, a hill known as Puncho d'Agast, which is used for launching paragliders, and has a radio mast. We could see it from our campsite, as in the photo below.

This is the view from up the top. I'll save you the vertigo inducing photo of the man climbing up inside the radio mast this time though.

Looking over towards the Causse de Larzac to the south.

Again there were garrigue type plants here, despite the Causse Noir being mainly forested (hence I suppose it's name?). Many of the causses are very open and used for sheep farming, not that we saw much in the way of sheep.

This tree's seed pods fascinated us and I've found out that it is called Bladder Senna (Colutea arborescens) from the pea/bean family, Fabaceae.

As you can see from the photo of me up above, it wasn't very warm on this day, so I didn't see many butterflies until the following day, when the sun came out and the heat hit us - for the rest of our holiday. I can't complain too much when it means the butterflies come out to play, and I'm looking forward to getting to that bit on the blog!

Albi, le Rougier de Camares and the vulture museum at the Gorge de la Jonte

I've already shared a few photos from these places but I said I would add some of the interior of Albi cathedral, plus some of Keith's photos of vultures, so here goes.

The Sainte Cécile cathedral at Albi (capital of the Tarn department) was built between the 13th and 15th centuries and the building on the right is a part of the Bishop's Palace, the Palais Episcopal de la Berbi, built before the cathedral itself in a defensive style as the Catholics were at war against the Cathars at this time. It now houses the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.

Whilst I don't have a religious bone in my body, I do appreciate very ornate church and cathedral interiors. Just trying to imagine the work that is involved in the decoration of these places is almost beyond belief! Whether it's the painting, particularly on the ceiling, or the sculptured stonework, they are all equally amazing and the talent involved in those ancient times is sadly mostly lacking in these modern times.

Looking back in the opposite direction.

The amazing ornate ceiling:

Beautiful red stone (marble?) font:

The old bridge, construction of which started in 1040! At one point in the middle ages, it had houses on it, but these were partially destroyed during a flood.

There were dozens of pigeons nesting in amongst the stones!

The new bridge, built in 1868.

The cathedral and Palais de la Berbie from the old bridge:

This building is right beside the old bridge, and I found it fascinating because the base under the patio is so dodgy looking! Not sure I'd want to sit out there. 😀

The collegiate Church of Saint Salvi, built in the 11th century.

On to the Rougier de Camares, weird outcrops of red clay full of iron oxide interspersed with occasional horizontal grey clay strata. It is a very strange valley full of these red patches of earth. Due to the clay, the soil is supposed to be quite moist, which explains the sphagnum moss in many places, but not the wild thyme growing through it!! One likes damp soil, the other dry.

I loved this grass, and found out later that it is Stipa pennata - which like Stipa tenuissima is also called Angel's Hair Grass. Stipa pennata grows across the Causse de Larzac near Millau, in which direction we were heading.

Another attractive wild grass:

We then spent three nights at Millau, a town near the fairly new viaduct de Millau, a motorway bridge across the Tarn river valley near Millau, designed by British architect Norman Foster. There were so many places of interest to visit around here, that we didn't even find time to visit the town itself! We will be back another day.

The first day here we visited the Vulture Museum beside the Gorge de la Jonte, a scenic drive and gorge in itself, even without the vulture interest. I've shown a few photos already but have some vulture photos now to share.

There are four species of vulture that nest around here, but by far the most common are the Griffon Vulture. There is one couple of Black Vultures, a handful of Egyptian Vultures and the Bearded Vulture or Lammergeier which is the rarest. This last we have yet to see.

These next images are all taken by Keith with his 800mm lens - as you can see from the image above, the cliff faces were a long way away, and these Griffon Vultures in the photo below are on the same cliffs. My few photos with my SX50 were terrible!

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Photo credit: Keith Allen

On this next photo, you'll need to view it full size as the vulture is the tiny looking bird right in the centre of the image! It's actually a Black (or Monk) Vulture (Aegypius monachus), much rarer than the Griffon Vultures and in fact there is only one pair nesting in this area this year; how lucky they chose to build their nest in full view of the viewing platform! They are the only vultures that build nests in trees. It's not in the photo but we could see the youngster's little head bobbing up and down - apparently it was about six weeks old.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Back to the Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus):

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Back soon I hope with more holiday photos!