I am dividing this post into two parts as I have so many photos! This was a really great day trip with Birding Languedoc and this time was very orchid orientated as we had an expert, Ian, with us, as well as Gill who usually leads the regular wildflower trips.
For once I didn't feel wrecked at the end of the day like I usually do with the bird trips - I think this is because with birding there is a lot of standing around (and looking up) which does my back in. Looking for plants is quite different as one is looking down much more, and there is far less hanging around waiting for a bird that might or might not appear.
We started off above the village of St Ferriol looking at a bank full of Aristolochia rotunda plants - an interesting plant in its own right, but it is also the only food plant of the Southern Festoon butterfly caterpillar. That butterfly was high on my most want to see list, and guess what - someone in the group managed to spot one!
The butterfly was on the path and stayed put whilst we all had a chance to take photos of it - we guessed by then that it had newly emerged and was unable to fly, giving us this lucky chance to really study it. The Southern Festoon (Zerynthia polyxena) has only one brood and flies in April and May, so I guess the best way to see them is to find where the host plant grows and hope for the best!
The red markings are a warning sign to predators that it is poisonous - which Aristolochia is to birds. I just love the red on its head as well!
Below is a Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae).
Also on this daytrip was a guy who we had met before who I know is knowledgeable about butterflies and wildflowers as he posts lots of pictures of them on our Languedoc Facebook group. He spotted the Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi) below on a thyme plant. We spent a lot of time together umming and ahhing over some of the butterfly IDs only for the next day on the FB group to have both come up with the same IDs, I'm glad to say! It's a lot easier after looking at your photos and ID books.
We kept seeing a really tiny blue butterfly and finally managed to get some shots (zoomed in, not macros), good enough to be able to ID it later on as the Baton Blue (Pseudophilotes baton). I have seen this before once. The eggs are laid on typical garrigue plants of thyme, lavender and mints, so places where these plants grow are good places to look for this butterfly in spring, and again in late summer.
Some of our group up on the plateau looking at the plants. In fact all morning I only looked through my binoculars once, when a bird of prey flew near us. We decided it was a juvenile Short Toed Snake Eagle, as a little different from the adult. Of course, we didn't have a bird expert with us!
Photobombed by a Beefly! The plant is Shrubby Gromwell (Lithodora fruticosa) which is a straggly woody shrub but very colourful when in bloom - unlike many of the small wildflowers this is one plant which shows up from a distance when in flower. Beeflies abounded on the wildflowers - such cool insects! The one here is bottom left of the picture.
This is the Yellow Bee Orchid (Ophrys lutea) which is also growing in my lawn (in fact we keep finding more - six plants so far!). There were also Early Spider Orchids and Sombre Bee Orchids, both of which we have at home so I didn't take any photos of them. They are generally browny coloured flowered orchids.
Another yellow flower that was all over was the wild narcissus, more commonly known as a jonquil (Narcissus assoanus). It was hard at times walking through all these jonquils and orchids trying not to tread on them!
We spent the entire morning up on these hills above St Ferriol, with views from a lookout at the top down over the town of Esperaza.
On the way down we took a different route via a meadow that was full of Lady Orchids (Orchis purpurea).
This is also a Lady Orchid but it is one of the rare white versions.
Here's one of the two meadows that were full of them. The longer grass in the background is land that belongs to our orchid guide, who asked the farmer who was cutting the grass on his land, not to. By not mowing after the Lady Orchids flower he discovered many more species of orchid growing there, although as he now admits, it does need a mow every now and again. It's like the difference between our lawn full of orchids and the wild grassland across the road - the grass is too long and full of thatch so there is little chance of an orchid being able to poke through, however, if we mowed our lawn all over, we would have no orchids at all! So a happy medium needs to be struck somehow, with grass cutting preferably after the orchids have been able to spread seed.
Part 2 coming soon!
Truth be told, I haven't really been in a blogging mood and I've spent most of the last couple of months redecorating anyway. I'll show you my before, during and afters of our bedroom as it's been a bloody nightmare, but - phew - it's finished now!
We have been out a number of times with Birding Languedoc. Back in February on a freezing day we saw our very first Lammergeier, also known as the Bearded Vulture. Not only was this amazing, but at our second stop, we saw another perched atop a ridge eating something. It flew off, then was joined by another. All of a sudden, over the top of the ridge a Golden Eagle appeared, and soared around the thermals with the Lammergeiers. What an experience! Keith did get some photos but even with his long lens you wouldn't know what they were without being told, so it's not worth sharing. He reckons we saw a Golden Eagle in Greece back in 2000, but I didn't really see it so I'm counting it as a lifer for me too. 😁
On our next trip I finally got to see a Bluethroat really properly, instead of vague partial glimpses which have been very frustrating! Just recently we saw our first Greater Short Toed Lark, but it was distant and in flight. Much better was a view of a Spotted Crake! I hadn't realised there were Crakes which live around marshy areas, as the only Crake I've heard of is the Corncrake, a grassland bird, but our bird guide told me there are three Crakes which we might see around wetland areas - all looking not unlike the Water Rail, as they are all part of the same family (which Moorhens belong to). Keith did get some decent photos even though it didn't stay around for long. So quite a few lifers already this year!
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Photo credit: Keith Allen
Spring has been a bit late coming but the garden is looking good and I've caught up with most garden jobs now - it's such a delight to have a small manageable garden! As usual the lawn is full of orchids - Early Spider, Sombre Bee and just the other day I discovered some Yellow Bee Orchids which was exciting, as we had had one solitary plant our first year but nothing since, and now there are four plants! There are some Lady Orchids flowering on the bank of next door's garden too. I saw a Dingy Skipper which landed in my Nectar Bar right in front of me just for a moment, but apart from flitting whites and something brown I haven't seen a lot of variety here yet (not that I have spent a lot of time outside, being indoors painting etc).
I did see some lovely butterflies a few days ago on an organised wildflower/orchid day out, also with Birding Languedoc, but that will be a separate post as I have loads of photos.
Our dry weather continues although it is much worse nearer the coast than here. The crops in the fields round here are coming up well as there has been enough rain to keep the soil moist beneath the surface, but on many of our outings it has been dry as a bone on the garrigues and more rocky, free draining areas. So much for April showers, whatever became of them? So this summer is looking really worrying from a water shortage point of view. Many areas already have drought restrictions.
We have a holiday sorted for the last week of June/first week of July with my brother, in the Moho of course. We are heading to Provence to see the lavender fields and explore some more. Provence is a huge area and includes a lot of mountainous areas so we are heading up into some of the higher national parks for a look around. We also have a two night 'jolly' booked with Birding Languedoc in mid June, up into the mountains of the Pyrenees Orientale department to look for wildflowers, butterflies and birds, whatever takes our fancy. We are staying half board in a small guest house and it sounds like a lot of fun! Our October housesitter is booked for both these trips which is great as the cats like her and vice versa. We may go away in the autumn again, possibly to Spain again, but who knows. I need to do a bit more research into the Provence trip first!
Okeydokey, let's have a look at the bedroom then! You can scroll through the photos to look at the after pics if you find these boring, but I wanted to put these pics here for the record.
There were already some cracks, both on the wall and on the ceiling, but after last summer's drought they opened up to 2mm wide! After finally getting rain in Nov and Dec the cracks closed up to around 1mm but the ceiling looked a right mess, and where I had already painted dark red behind the bed had white cracks showing through. I didn't like the wallpaper that was already there on one wall which was peeling off in places and had a jaggedy crack all the way down it, so the plan was to remove that, repair the walls and ceiling, then repaint the wallpapered wall with the same colour, duck egg blue. I'd already bought the paint at the same time as I got the dark red paint. Both paints were matched up with cushion covers I took into the shop.
