Orchids, butterflies and more in the Upper Aude Valley - Part 1

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!