Wildflowers and Orchids with Birding Languedoc May 2024 - Part 1 Moussoulens

We are going back to May now, as I didn't have time to write about this outing before going away. This was one of the wildflower day trips with Birding Languedoc, but was predominantly about orchids, lead by a guy who took us on an orchid day last year.

We were lucky on this day as both places we went to were within half an hour of home! The first was just outside of Moussoulens, across the plain from us on the edge of the Montagne Noir. This was a large area of heathland, mostly grass and flowers with some trees around the edges of the areas where we walked. We were searching for a specific species of orchid, which we eventually found, and of course, found many other interesting plants as well.

The morning started damp, gloomy and chilly, but eventually the sun started to come out and many flowers opened up and what looked like an unpromising site at first turned out to be very special after all.

There were absolutely tons of Long-lipped Tongue Orchids everywhere.

The following are all species we call 'Rockrose", but completely different, proving how important Latin names are! Clockwise from top left: Grey-leaved Cistus (Cistus albidus), Spotted Rockrose (Tuberaria guttata), White Rockrose (Helianthemum apenninum), Yellow Rockrose (Fumana procumbens)

The White Rockrose was growing through Common Thyme (Thymus vulgaris), which is the grey bushy type we see most often on the garrigues. However in this place, there were two species of thyme - see the following photo for the other species.

Clockwise from top: Quaking Grass (Briza media), I think this is one of the Star-of-Bethlehems (Ornithogalum orthophyllum) and lastly, Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), a thyme with many common names.

This Cream-spot Tiger moth (Arctia villica) was sleeping on a leaf, waiting for the weather to warm up. They have amazing colours underneath!

A path lined with Grey-leaved Cistus, one of my favourite spring flowering plants down here.

Keith, Niall, Pog and Ian - Niall and Ian were our leaders for the day.

There was a patch in the heath with lots of this really pretty little plant. It wasn't until at home and using PlantNet that I discovered that it is actually a broomrape, which are parasitic plants! As it has green leaves, it doesn't really look like one, but it is known as hemiparasitic as whilst it photosynthesises, it also takes nutrients from the roots of other plants. It is Mediterranean Lineseed (Bellardia trixago).

This is another plant that had us confused - only to find out it is actually Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in flower! The young leaves of this oak are not holly-like like some of the older leaves are, so none of us looking at the tree noticed any of them.

A beetle on a Verbascum flower.

There was a large patch of these grasses which I think are Stipa, possibly pennata.

The following are some of the orchids we saw in Moussoulens.

Woodcock Orchid (Ophrys scolopax).

Long-lipped Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea).

Yellow Bee Orchid (Ophrys lutea).

This was the orchid that we were mainly searching for as it is much rarer than the others that were around this area. This is Ophrys bertolonii subsp. magniflora, which doesn't have an English name as far as I know. Isn't it beautiful?

There were also Man, Lizard and Early Spider Orchids, but I didn't bother taking photos of them - how blasé am I, with these species growing in my lawn!

I'll continue the rest of the day in another post.