Orchids at home and another trip with Birding Languedoc

We are on to the next phase of orchids in our lawn, now being the time for Man Orchids and Pyramid (or Pyramidal) Orchids. This Pyramid Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis) in our back lawn is way ahead of the rest of them.

There are also some late Early Spider Orchids (Ophrys sphegodes) freshly flowering in the back lawn!

Out the front there are dozens of yellow labels marking where the orchids are so that when K mows, he can try not to mow them off. This is easier said than done and mowing is taking him much longer at the moment. However most of the earlier orchids have gone to seed thankfully so they can be mowed over. 

We have had a decent amount of rain over the last week so that's great news for our gardens, agriculture (as the sunflowers have just recently been sown) and the environment in general.

Above and below are Man Orchids (Orchis anthropophora).

I had a little wander up the road last week and came across a solitary orchid that I didn't recognise - with the aid of my (new for Xmas) ID book and facebook I've found out it's a Military Orchid (Orchis militaris).

The nectar bar is looking great at the moment and I have been filling in some of the gaps with garlic chives which I divided from a pot on the terrace, which will add some white colour and attract insects from August onwards. Of course they then self seed like crazy but I can always weed some out if they try to take over.

I lost one of the Gauras, but that's not a bad thing as it was too crowded in that spot (where the Valerian is); however I have found three new self seeded plants! I can find room for one, but they grow enormous when flowering so I'm not sure at the moment where the others will go.

I also bought some more lavender to fill in a few gaps in the herb bed, and I was really pleased to discover pink lavender for sale, so I grabbed a couple of them and a couple of blue ones. They were all labelled up as semi dwarf varieties and with the actual name - wonders will never cease! Since I took this photo on the 8th everything has grown even more and I had to search for two of the lavenders already planted as they've been rather swamped by the tall plants, also that lavender in the foreground is now a lovely bright blue!

Looking at the Nectar Bar from opposite ends: the large green plant in the foreground above is Gaura and will be a lot taller when it is flowering!

I was really pleased with the Cat Mints that I bought as they are all taller varieties compared to the ones I have grown in the past. So far the cats have shown no interest, maybe because it's not really suitable for lying on and rolling on? 😀

We went on another trip out with Birding Languedoc a few days ago into the Corbieres region and it was pretty horrific in the morning with an evil wind. I was in full on winter clothes - gloves, winter jacket and a head band thingy which covers your forehead and ears - it belongs to K and is the first time I've worn it. Much better than a beanie! I was nice and warm, apart from my cheeks. 

At lunch we headed to a nearby river where we took our chairs and ate our picnics serenaded by Nightingales and Golden Orioles, and we were then given a lovely display by some Bee-eaters who kept coming back to perch in the same trees - they seem to love dead trees which makes it great for viewing/spotting them! Amazingly a group of Griffon Vultures flew overhead and some Black Kites and a Short Toed Snake Eagle. Armchair birding, what could be better?!

Our route was changed for the afternoon so we could go somewhere more protected from the wind so we spent a lovely afternoon walking up a sunny track through a pine forest with views of rocky ridges here and there. We started off crossing a little stream walking over some stepping stones where we saw a water snake, some fish and tadpoles in the crystal clear water. Also some red damselflies mating. I could have stayed here for a while just watching! After a while of uphill walking we came to where we had a view of a Golden Eagles' nest with known young inside, but we saw no eagles and the young were too low down inside the nest! Great to see anyway. We heard plenty of birds but didn't see any of note but it was lovely walk with pretty Mediterranean garrigue wildflowers

Along the way there were plenty of butterflies and I finally got my camera out of my rucksack. 

Below is a Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius).

We saw a number of other butterflies - Southern White Admiral, Provence Chalkhill Blue, Cleopatra, Brown Argus, a dead Black-veined White on a flower and a few other unknowns. The most interesting was a Spanish Festoon, but by the time I got to where it had been spotted it flew away! Frustrating for me if you recall the Southern Festoon I saw just recently, this was the other Festoon! Cross fingers I'll see one another time. After a long day with an early start it gets a little fatiguing all the up and downs involved in trying to take photos of butterflies (and flowers) so I just took a few pictures of the more interesting plants:

Above is a wild Gladioli (Gladiolus illyricus), and below is Narbonne Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum narbonense).

Finally, another orchid but a new one to me. I've seen the more common Tongue Orchid (S. lingua) but this is the Long Lipped Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea).

The weather is still really chilly for the time of year and not putting me much in the mood for planting out tomatoes and geraniums, which I need to go and buy. The pool is looking inviting, although no way are we putting the heating on yet! Anyone fancy a dip at 18C? I prefer 30C. 😀😀😀

I wrote this last week but we’ve been busy with a sick cat (sudden stage 4 kidney disease) 😢😢😢 so have been to the vets three times and have a bucketful of medications and different kinds of foods which we've been trying to get her to eat. She has perked up a lot but is still not completely out of the woods, and even if she does get over this episode is likely to have flare ups again in the future. Please send positive vibes to Hallie.

Orchids, butterflies and more in the Upper Aude Valley - Part 2

I didn't see this butterfly, but Keith did and this is his photo. It's a Provence Orange Tip (Anthocharis euphenoides), though I think he may have taken the shot at the morning location. I also forgot to mention that we saw Swallowtails and Scarce Swallowtails on the plateau as well.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

After lunch we set off about 20 minutes away to a place where Ian had discovered a field with Conical Orchids (Orchis conica/Neotinea conica), which are less common than many orchids. The habitat here was a grazed field that had had cows in it until fairly recently, so the grass was quite short.

After a bit of time we realised there were other orchids in this field and also Cowslips (Primula veris) - in fact we had gone past hundreds of Cowslips on the verges on our way here - really pretty! The two blue flowers in the bottom left corner are Grape Hyacinths (Muscari neglectum) which are common wildflowers in the Mediterranean area in the spring. As always with my photos on Blogger, click on one to view them much larger with better image quality.

This is a Green Winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio).

Someone spotted this lovely caterpillar curled up at the base of one of the Conical Orchids - it's a Grass Eggar (Lasiocampa trifolii) moth larva.

The Tongue Orchid (Serapias lingua) is a gorgeous orchid.

This is a Woodcock Orchid (Ophrys scolopax) - one of the prettiest I've seen so far. Looks like a teddy bear to me.

Growing in close proximity to the Woodcock were these Early Spider Orchids (Ophrys sphegodes) - but which we think were crossed with the Woodcock due to the pink colouring and similarities. Another very pretty orchid.

Onto the third stop and this Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis) (I think) and others were running around on the curbstones by the parking.

We came to this area to see lots of Early Purple Orchids (Orchis mascula), growing on very dry stony soil on a hillside. i always thought they had spotted leaves but apparently they don't all have the spots!

Our fourth and final location of the day had a different kind of habitat - lots of fresh young heather growing although it seemed like the old bushy heather had been cut back as it was really hard to walk through, crunching over the cut wood, and in one place, through a boggy place with a little stream! Along the way we spotted this lovely Western Green Lizard (Lacerta bilineata). I'd seen one back at our house in Brittany, but unfortunately one of the cats had bitten it. It was still alive so I put it in a sheltered spot and hope it survived. These are big lizards (as European lizards go) so wasn't easy to get all of it in one image!

So here's a shot of it's head and upper body. I think this is the male as it has a blue throat.

The reason for visiting this spot was to see this specific subspecies of Sombre Bee Orchid - Ophrys fusca vasconica. For some orchid scholars this is known as a separate species, but there is a lot of hoo haa in the orchid world over subspecies vs. new species. Personally, I wouldn't have a clue! 😀😀😀

So that's the end of this lovely day out. I hope you enjoyed me taking you along with me!