Sentier Botanique revisited and Sentier Bucheron, Montréal

We went back to the forest in late April to see how it had changed from the previous visit in March. Lots happens in the spring and it's a botantical wonderland so everchanging. The sign below explains a lot about the area and the walks and trails in the Malepere hills, though it's in French of course!

I've zoomed in on the walk that we did - this time though we followed the Sentier Botanique and then went on to do the Sentier Bucheron, making about 6km in all. The explanation about this area explains that this is an important geographical area for flora, as the Atlantic influence from the Aquitaine basin meets the Mediterranean influence here in these hills, and within a stretch of about 5km there is both typical dry Mediterranean garrigue and typical woodland of the north, for example, of the Parisian area. Then there are all sorts of plants in between. Mostly my photos are of the garrigue area as this was a new trail for us.

At the beginning of the trails there is a sandy, rocky bank with typical garrigue plants - here the Grey-leaved Cistus (Cistus albidus) is flowering and there is also Kermes Oak, which is the low growing holly-leaved evergreen one. When we came back down the hill on the Bucheron trail we were following this bank with lots of garrigue plants as you will see later.

First, we started off following the botanical path that we followed in March. This time of course it was a lot more green.

There were still a few flowers hanging on which had been flowering in March (Cuckoo Flower and Pulmonaria) and you can see here some of the spotty leaves from Pulmonaria, but Bugle was the predominant flower in the verges of the track.

Below is Purple Gromwell (Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum). A few friends ID'd it for me using Pl@nt.net, which I need to start using myself. I've seen it used out in the field and it's a very handy tool to use.

We then veered off to the Bucheron path rather than coming back on the Botanique loop, as I was feeling strong enough to tackle a longer walk this time. There was a lot of uphill at the start of this trail though! I hadn't realised at the time but this area is planted up with American Red Oak, which should be a lovely colour in the autumn. At the very top of the hill there is a conifer plantation, but apart from that, all the rest of the forest is native species.

At the top of the bank Hawthorn was flowering, but I'm not sure of the shrub flowering below - a Viburnum maybe? EDIT: it's a Wayfaring Tree (Viburnum lantana), thanks to Trev for the ID!

We started to come across patches of Bloody Cranesbill (Geranium sangiuneum), which likes chalky soil with low nutritional value. It is common in coastal areas and thrives in limestone pavements. I'm always excited when I see plants that I have cultivated in my own gardens growing in their native habitat!

Woodland at the top of the slope and the chalky bank with the Bloody Cranesbill and a yellow flowering Broom at the bottom, amongst other plants.

There were a couple of places where the vegetation opened up to give a view of the mountains - unfortunately not terribly clear, but they often are covered in cloud or haze when everything else is really sunny! This view is looking in the general direction of Andorra, and out village is over there somewhere, just out of view.

A close up of the bank, showing a Broom of some sort and oak saplings pushing through the sandy rock, and a small Grey-leaved Cistus (Cistus albidus) bottom left.

Both Grey-leaved and Sage-leaved Cistus (Cistus salviifolius).

Sage-leaved Cistus (Cistus salviifolius).

I found the following plant interesting as there are no leaves at the base, just a stem coming straight out of the soil. I've just used Pl@nt.net for the first time and it tells me it is Pale Madwort (Alyssum alyssoides). It does have small yellow flowers at the tip later on, which might have helped me to recognise it as from the brassica family!

A Common Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis) appeared, saw us so moved a little way, then stopped, thinking it was out of our view. Cheers little lizard, we had a chance to take photos of you for a change!

Now this insect was the star of the day. There were a number of them flitting around the start of the walk where there were grassy verges, as there is arable land beside the start of the walks. We also walked a little way along an open path following the route of a small stream, listening to Nightingales singing from the trees beside the stream. We were accompanied by these Owlflies which flitted about and often stopped in the long grass. Owlflies are part of the same order, Neuroptera, as Lacewings, Antlions and Mantidflies; many of these are some very interesting looking creatures and are predatory.

Wow, is all I can say about it!!! 😀

I don't know if we will revisit the forest before summer, as we went there in July last year and know what it's like then (dry, few flowers, but still quite a lot of butterflies, predominantly Gatekeepers and Silver-washed Fritillaries). However we will certainly go back in the autumn so I'll update the blog about it then. 

Next post may take a while coming... we went on an amazing organised wildflower day out on Tuesday and I took over 200 photos!! Plus next week we have three trips with the same organisation, Birding Languedoc - this time it's back to its usual bird trips. Due to lockdown and bad weather they have ended up all being reorganised and the trips we picked just happen to all fall in one week!

Going back to the puddling buttterflies, I forgot about this little video that Keith took, so here is a link to it.

Take care and stay safe xx

The Sentier Botanique, Montreal

Montreal is a nearby hilltop village that we can see from our house, on the edge of the Malepere range of hills. This botanical walk is an easy 3.5km round walk, with a further loop to extend it by several more kms if wanted. Plenty more paths lead off in various directions but the one we are interested in here is the main, botanical trail, which has many boards giving information on the varied plants and trees growing in this forest. 

We went here first at the end of July last year when it was drying out so there were few flowers out - even so, there were plenty of butterflies about. We wanted to see what it was like here through the spring so we set off one day last week when the weather was fine and mild, and had a lovely few hours. I took tons of photos of course, so I will just mostly caption them and try not to type too much blurb! 😀

It was lovely to see the swathes of low growing early spring flowers; above Lesser Celandine gives a lovely sunny glow to the sides of the path.

What's so interesting for us around here is the mixture of plants that we are familiar with, and ones which are more Mediterranean such as this Tree Heather. There are also a mix of four species of native oaks in this forest, plus the introduced American Red Oak. At the very beginning of the walk, where it is quite open and sunny, there is a little patch of typical garrigue plants - Kermes Oak, which is a short, shrub like ivy-looking evergreen oak, and some Cistus Rock Roses, amongst others.

The following plants are ones that are common in northern Europe, notably - Pulmonaria:

Vinca mixed in with the Lesser Celandine:

and Cuckoo Flower/Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis):

It was a day of firsts - the first Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps heard singing, and then the first Orange Tip butterfly spotted. I was a fair distance from it but was using my Lumix bridge camera zoomed in rather than my SX50 which I use for macro. I stood around focussing on the flowers as the butterfly kept coming back so was able to get several shots in flight - not as sharp as I would have liked but I didn't want to change the settings for a faster speed and miss out on shooting the butterfly!

I managed the same with this male Brimstone - in the second picture it is just coming into land. You don't normally see their wings open as they always hold them closed when not in flight.

If I'd been on my own I would have spent more time trying to shoot the many Bee Flies buzzing around, but K was always 20 paces ahead of me waiting for me. 😂 You can just see one resting in the middle of the leaf and another half hidden behind grass on the left of the leaf.

Part way around the track swathes of Wood Anemones appeared in amongst the Celandine.

There was tons of Lady's Smock/Cuckoo Flower as well, but we didn't hear any Cuckoos!

One of the many information boards giving info about the plants found in the forest.

At this point we took a detour way down to the valley floor to the tiny stream and even tinier 'waterfall', which was only about 10 foot high and even after a winter's worth of rain, still only a trickle. Barely worth taking a photo of! Nice to see some streams flowing though as so many of them are dried out in summer. Down near the stream where it was damper and darker there were a few different plants, notably this parasitic plant called Purple Toothwort. It's very funky!

Cowslip:

Anemone hepatica:

On the loop coming back there were the first Merisier (Wild Cherry) trees flowering. The lower growing saplings always start flowering first.

Back at the car park there is a wealth of information given about this area. This is a photo I took last summer, but I wanted to show the info given for anyone reading this who might be wanting to do the walk. The other day these bugs in the next photo were all over the wood!

These are Lygaeus equestris, a species of ground bug, commonly known as - wait for it - Black-and-Red Bugs. What, really? I wonder why? 😂😂😂

I hope to visit at least once more during the springtime to record the flora and butterflies in this little patch of paradise.