Recent outings

Since August we have made a real effort to get out and about before summer ends. This is an area with a lot of bird migration and whilst there are some interesting winter/all year round birds too, who wouldn't want to look for Bee-eaters, Rollers and Hoopoes! I'm also always looking for butterflies, and as well as fauna and flora there is the most magnificent scenery everywhere.

We've just had a visit from a friend who is doing the 'Cathar Trail' in her motorhome, and it's just so exciting to think that we now live here, and can visit most of the places she has been to in a day trip from home! Some of the chateaux and abbeys we have already visited, but there is so much still to see. She had a book about all the places to visit that are related to the Cathars, and we've ordered the book too. Just need to build up some energy to get up to most of those chateaux perched high up on mountain peaks!

Before we go on any outings here on the blog, here are a couple of views taken from the house on 22 August. It looks very brown where all the wheat and barley has been harvested, and the yellowy/green fields are sunflowers. I have loved seeing the sunflower fields - they are so cheery! The few dark green fields are vines. 

Looking towards the Montagne Noir.

Looking towards the Malepere hills in the foreground and the Corbieres in the distance.

In August we bought a new car. We wanted a 4x4 for going up into the mountains where occasionally you come across some rather rough roads. Even down on the flat lands there can be gravel tracks here and there, and our last car was very low slung. Dacia Dusters are very popular as they are reasonably priced for what you get, but we paid extra for this colour to have a complete change from the metallic silver and light blue that we've had over the last 20 years. This car is easily spotted in a car park full of silver cars! 😀 We also have a lot more space in our garage as our last car was a very long estate car. This one is surprisingly roomy though with a decent sized boot, enough room for people sitting in the back AND enough room for a 6'4" driver! It feels nicer sitting higher up like in the Moho; in the last car our legs were stuck out in front of us, almost like being in a sports car.

We had a drive out to the western Corbieres one afternoon. We were interested to see what some of the roads were like, as when we drove through in the Moho we stuck to bigger roads, our road atlas showing many of the roads to be very small on the map. I don't think we would have had a problem on these roads in the Moho, but you never know! Most of where we drove was hilly and forested, but as we got deeper into the Corbieres there were some nice rocky crags and then we turned up towards the village of Montjoi where you drive along beside a gorge, which although not the most spectacular of gorge sceneries, was still pretty interesting.

I didn't know what this mini castle was at the time, but have found it on the map. It's the Chateau d'Arques, a 14th century chateau which was ruined but has been restored and in part, rebuilt. It's open to the public and according to Wikipedia, is one of the Cathar castles.

A view of the Pyrenees looking towards Andorra, with the Chateau d'Arques in the distance on the left.

Keith in the village of Montjoi. We had sort of planned to do a walk through a mostly forested area, but found it was closed due to a landslip! I was very pleased because it was seriously hot (about 35C) and all I wanted to do was get back in the air-conditioned car. Way too hot for walking!

Me in the same place facing the opposite direction, with the side of the gorge behind me. Down in the bottom of the gorge there is a Roman bridge that we would have crossed at the start of the walk, but again, too hot to do as it was a steep walk down and back up again.

Another day (1st Sept) we took the Moho out for a spin to the coast. The day was a bit of a disaster due to having the Moho with us, because unbeknown to us, there is a low bridge over the road we needed to take to get to the car park to visit the Ile Sainte Lucie near Port La Nouvelle. There was, luckily, a car park very close to the bridge, where a couple of mohos were parked. We knew we would have a long walk from here to the start of the loop walk around the island, which is a nature reserve, but off we set anyway after having our picnic lunch.

However, it was so far it took us 45 minutes to get to the lock crossing to get to the island. By this time I was feeling exhausted, and thirsty. Thank god it was under 30C with a slight breeze, so not too hot for walking, but guess what, two-thirds of the way up the road I discovered Keith had left the drink behind. So the thought of doing a 4.5km walk and then another 45 minutes walking back to the Moho, with nothing to drink either, was just too much to contemplate. On top of this, whilst we were sitting by the old canal way taking all this in, we were getting bitten to death by mossies dropping out of the pine trees above. Eventually I told K I just could not do it as I wasn't having a good day energy wise and that we could come back to visit the reserve. We had planned to visit another place anyway, which was a 40 min drive away around the other side of the lagoons, and there wasn't really time to do both. Funnily enough on one side of the canal were tall reeds and we kept hearing Dartford Warblers in there! I expected them on the island side which is heathland - didn't know they liked reedbeds! So another reason to visit as we have not yet seen a proper view of a Dartford Warbler. We've seen them distantly when we hadn't had binocs with us, as they have a very specific jizz.

After this we drove around to the Roc de Conilhac, which is a little hill with 360 degree views all around which is used by the LPO for their autumn migration count. The LPO (Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux) is the French equivalent of the RSPB. However, the road leading most directly was a small narrow one so we decided to go a different way, annoyingly we ended up going through Gruissan and taking a really long route around. This was mostly caused by using Google maps as a satnav as the Roc is not marked on either the Moho's satnav nor Waze which K uses as a satnav on his phone. Google didn't know we were in a 7m long vehicle so it told us to go through the centre of Gruissan (to be fair, all satnavs would probably do the same thing, if they thought it was shorter/faster). Not a problem if you are in a car, but the streets were narrow and in one place was full of people eating out at pavement cafes. Keith kept yelling in horror "Where are you taking me?????" and I could only blame it on Google.... 😂 We did get through with not too much trouble, but I'll remember in future to take the longer road round the outside of the village!

Eventually we made it to the Roc and walked the short walk up to the top. There was a group of people sitting in the shade of probably the only decent sized bush at the top looking out for any migrating birds, but birds prefer a good north-west wind to help them along the way, and we don't like going out on windy days! It was well worth the visit though as the views were stunning, there were flamingos in the lagoons below (and we passed some in a lagoon at Gruissan), and there were a number of information panels giving not only info on bird migration, but also showing the view in that particular direction and telling you what everything was in the distance.

We had a chat with the birders, who turned out to be holiday makers, as the LPO people don't go there every day if there isn't a wind in the right direction. They had seen some birds but not a lot. There is a blackboard there with a list of the birds and the numbers that had passed - about 87,000 Honey Buzzards and something like 5 Rollers! I knew that Honey Buzzards were early to leave but at least those numbers indicate they (as a species) are doing well, I would think.

View from the Roc de Conilhac looking towards Gruissan (you can see these photos better if you click on them to bring them up bigger).

If you click on this photo you will see some flamingos in the lagoons in the foreground!

Looking south from the Roc.

Keith and other birders on the top of the Roc, looking inland in the direction of the Haut-Languedoc range.

As I mentioned Monika's visit at the beginning of this post, I'll put this photo here, of us with her adorable little dog, Olivia. Sadly, Olivia has her eyes closed in this pic! She didn't come into the house because of the cats, but Monika did carry her round to the patio where Olivia sat on M's lap and the cats glared at her, but didn't run away. Amazingly my really nervous cat, Bertie, was friendly to M, whereas Harry the big ginger boy ran a mile every time he saw her. Cats are odd.

In case you wondered, no we didn't socially distance, but neither did we hug, which is really hard when you see an old friend who you haven't seen for a while. Monika was travelling on her own with her dog and staying at aires, not campsites, and not having a lot of contact with other people, and she thinks she had the virus back in January, so we reckoned we could be brave. I'm not sure how you really manage to socially distance when you have someone visit your house anyway; that would be really hard. In any event, we have barely socialised since the pandemic broke out and have kept our distance from people as much as possible in shops etc, and always worn masks. 

I have more photos prepared but think this is quite long enough, so I will do another post of outings. Tomorrow we are planning to revisit the Ile Sainte Lucie - in the CAR!!! 😄😄😄

More interesting discoveries at home

Have you ever heard of a Southern Gatekeeper? No, me neither! I only discovered recently that they exist. I knew there was a Spanish Gatekeeper, which I'd seen once before in the Pyrenees Orientales near to the Spanish border. I thought then that I was seeing this butterfly in my garden, but having a look through my butterfly book I realised that I had in fact been seeing the Southern Gatekeeper, along with the regular Gatekeeper. There isn't a huge difference in how they look, other than the male Southern Gatekeeper has sex brands on the topside of its forewing, and underneath they lack the small spots that the regular Gatekeeper has. There's also a bit more of a Y shape in the pale coloration underneath. There's a side by side picture on Wikipedia here showing the difference in the underwing pattern between the two species.

You can clearly see the sex brand markings on the forewing above.

The underwing showing a slight Y shape in a pale white colour, and no spots.

The next discovery was really exciting! We had seen Praying Mantises in Provence a few years ago, but I was very surprised to discover one when I was deadheading the geraniums. I'm really finding some goodies in the flower pots around the pool - a wasp spider, Geranium Bronze butterflies, and a praying mantis - you wouldn't expect so much interesting wildlife there, would you?!! Wonder what will be next.... 😀

The following photos were taken with Keith's phone, which was the nearest thing to hand....

European Mantis (Mantis religiosa)

You can really see how well camouflaged they are as they are identical in colour to the leaves! K was amazed that I had even found it, but it moved, which is how I noticed it. It's worth clicking on the individual images to view them a bit closer, as they have an extremely scary alien-like head and eyes, and terrifying front legs (imagine being their prey, or indeed, their mate!).

A few days ago K spotted this crab spider on the tiles in our covered patio area. When I went out with my camera, it of course started to walk, so there I was on my knees, bum in the air, crawling along with it trying to get some decent shots. 😀

It walked along to the drain that runs along the patio stones beside the pool area, and took shelter beneath one of the metal rails. I could still see it though!

It's Heriaeus hirtus, a member of the Thomisidae family of crab spiders. Hirtus means hairy in Latin!

Last but not least, a Hoopoe flew into our neighbour's garden, which was wonderful to see. K had seen a few before but I missed them, so this is the first one I have seen since moving here! I was hoping to see more. Never mind, we have seen Bee-eaters in the vicinity of our village several times, so I'm not too upset. It's bloody brilliant living here! 

(Credit for these photos goes to Keith, who took them through the kitchen window).

Talking of loving it here, we really do. I just love everything, love my new house, love the easy to manage garden, the pool (of course!) and the view. And love, love, LOVE living in the south of France! There is just SO much to explore here. It will take us years to explore just our own department, never mind the neighbouring depts. There's the Pyrenees, the Montagne Noir, the Haut Languedoc mountains, the Corbieres hills, the coastal area... and in normal times there is nearby Spain too! And of course the fauna and flora, so much of which is different. I feel so much better depression wise and feel joy again often. Life is good. 

La Carriere du Roy - a walk around a marble quarry and gorge

As I've got a tiny bit of my blogging mojo back, I am trying to work my way through some of our post lockdown walks to share some of the goodies that I've come across. Where we live now is both familiar and different as we are in the cross over zone of more northern flora and that of the Mediterranean area. However on this walk, which was across the plain and up into the foothills of where the Montagne Noir meets the Haut Languedoc range of hills/mountains, it was definitely different to where we live now. 

This was an area of garrigue and rocky hillsides opening up in one place to a gorge with magnificent views. There is a marble quarry here called La Carriere du Roy - the King's Quarry. There are walks all around and the red marble that is quarried is very apparent, and there are interesting modern sculptures dotted around created from it. The location is near Caunes-Minervois in the Aude department.

We first came here in late February with the Birding Languedoc organisation who run birding holidays and have started to do day trips with a professional guide, so it was one of these day trips that we joined. Our main target species was the Wallcreeper, and after hitting a blank at Minerve in the morning we came here after our picnic lunch. Many of the group had spotting scopes and as luck would have it, someone spotted a solitary wallcreeper right across the gorge on the far wall. It was just a blur that moved through my binocs but I could just about see it properly through a scope! Hopefully we will get to see one this coming winter now that we know of a couple of sites to look. A bit closer would be nice! 

So we decided to come back again to see what it was like here in the summer. It was June when we visited so I'm behind again with blogging as usual!

The gorge this summer looking each way.

Going back to February - after a mild winter the day was really pleasant and fairly warm, and there were quite a lot of plants flowering on the slopes of the garrigue. 

Strange, with this new Blogger layout there doesn't seem to be an option to caption your photos! This is a Cistus, though I don't know which one.

Iris

Tiny Narcissus

This is a view taken in February looking towards the Corbieres hills.

Same view though zoomed in a bit in June.

Keith walking along one of the many tracks with one of the marble sculptures.

In June sadly the cistus had gone over apart from a last few flowers here and there, so next year I would love to come back in late April/early May to see the hillsides covered in bloom. Damn that virus.

However there were still plenty of plants flowering, many of which I didn't know. Butterfly pics at end if flowers don't interest you!

I knew this was an allium but after a bit of research discovered it is Allium flavum, also known as Small Yellow Onion or Yellow-flowered Garlic (according to Wikipedia).

Here there are two types of sedum, Sedum album and Sedum sediforme. In the background the yellow flowered shrub is Bupleurum fruticosum or Shrubby Hare's-ear. You can click on the photo to see it bigger.

I recognise this plant as I think I've had it as a garden plant but can't remember what it is called.
Edit: it's White Rock-rose Helianthemum apenninum. Found it!

Here we have a mass of Scabious in the foreground, with Bupleurum fruticosum on the slope with a few Brooms. Imagine it with butterflies flitting about all over!

There were tons of butterflies but mostly just of two species, one of which was the Marbled White (Melanargia galathea).

However it was brilliant to spot this Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma). Not a lifer as I have seen one once before.

I've saved the best until last! The other butterfly that was prolific was the Great Banded Grayling, but it was very flitty and the only time one settled and I got a chance to get a photo, my SX50 just played up and I could not get it to focus! However I was quite pleased with this one just as it flew off.... (lol). They don't rest with their wings open so you only get to see the glimpse of black and white in flight.
 

Great Banded Grayling (Brintesia circe)

We have been out a number of times since then but at this time of year I have to watch the weather forecast, as I want a nice sunny day for the butterflies, but without much wind, and not much hotter than low 30s. There's usually only about one day a week like that!