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!