Mediterranean Pyrenees

Seen Along the Way

8/11/2021

By Robin Noble Photos by Martine Noble

During our two months in France, we had some nice sightings; they started, rather unusually, on the way down through the country on the motorways. Some way south of Clermont Ferrand, a farmer was cutting hay in a small field and there were at least six storks in the cut section – were they perhaps looking for frogs or even mice? The next morning, there were vultures above the road out from Millau, and as we emerged out on to the plain well before Béziers, a flash of gorgeous colour – blues, turquoise, browns, almost a pink – must have been a roller; our first in Europe.

We made a short trip west from PO, right into the Pyrenees, revisiting one of our favourite high cols. Again, high up, was something we had never really seen, such a show of the autumn crocuses that we had to call it a wildflower meadow. We stopped to photograph, and to appreciate its beauty.

Other creatures, we could see, appreciated the scene more as a source of food. It had been ploughed (there is no other word) by wild boar – presumably they eat the crocus corms? Again, we had never seen sanglier-damage on this scale.

And while we were out of the van, photographing, there were countless swallows and martins overhead. Interesting that they would choose such a high migration route; clearly, there were hordes of insects in the lee of the summit of the col and the migrating birds were making the most of it … against a background of seemingly endless declines in the numbers of so many species, it was wonderful to see so many birds.

Over the summit, on the narrow road downhill, we had to stop to let a young fox cross; he seemed quite unworried by our vehicle and wandered over to the verge on our side. A car came up the hill and also slowed to a halt. Despite the noise of the engines, the fox cocked his ears, looked into the grass on the roadside, did a leap and emerged with a mouse, which was apparently very tasty. He then slowly strolled off the road…

The next day we took another, even narrower road, uphill to a bergerie we knew; last time we had been there, three years ago, there had been a berger and lots of sheep. Now, while it was clear that cows had come that way, the bergerie was shut up, and there were no sheep beside the road. To our surprise, however, there were marmots, right beside the narrow strip of tarmac. They moved a bit as we stopped, but one stayed in the open as sentinel, and Martine managed to photograph it from the comfort of the van.

Again, what was noticeable was that the former sheep-pasture was now a chaos of ploughed ground, once more the result of sanglier activity. It was lovely to see the marmots, but for how long they will be able to survive there, with the short grass on which they depend being effectively destroyed by the boar, is not at all clear to us…

And when we made one of our short jaunts into Spain, we were in for another surprise; we stayed a night in an attractive seaside hotel in Port Lligat, and as we drove down the steep road between stone walls into the very tidy hotel carpark, there were three sangliers, mother and two well-grown babies, rooting around in what were meant to be tidy strips of flowers and shrubs at the entrance to the building.

We were told that during the periods of lockdown in Spain, the wild boar had lost any fear of people and were wandering through the village in broad daylight. While this did provide us with some excitement, and a few photos, it is clear that the numbers of wild boar are not simply making them a pest but creating a real environmental problem which will disfigure much of the Pyrenees unless they can be brought back under control.

While we were in Spain, we visited, as ever, the wetland area we casually call ‘the Emporda’; despite recent thundery downpours it was, in fact, very short of water, and almost devoid of birds. We did, however, see two very handsome snipe and one species which was new to us, a green sandpiper. All the local storks had left, bar one which I happened to see flying about on its own as we arrived.

Green Sandpiper

Our own local Etang was pretty quiet the day we visited, but on another occasion we explored a little of the significantly larger bodies of water further north. Here there were hordes of mosquitoes, but also and rather more enjoyably, lots of flamingos, egrets and cormorants, seen from a fragrant maritime ‘heath’ which is mostly covered with wild rosemary. And we visited a migration ‘hotspot’, the Roc de Canilhac, a small eminence which rises from a mix of Etangs and marsh, and is, just like the ‘hillock’ by St Nazaire, a great location from which to see migrating birds. Thousands of storks had gone through a few weeks earlier, but while we were there, we could still see a flock of maybe fifty or sixty. We had excellent views of a marsh harrier, while kestrels and buzzards flew around. In fact, at regular intervals throughout this spell in France, brilliant views of superbly-marked buzzards brightened the sunny days – especially when they flew over the garden. We saw them at regular intervals beside the motorway all the way back to Dieppe, from where we took the ferry home.

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An Evolving Land- and Seascape

30/9/2021

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By Robin Noble Photos by Martine Noble

It is two years since we spent a summer in PO, and it was, of course, a great joy to get back to familiar places and do the things that we always used to. A high priority, especially in the surprisingly hot, humid and mosquito-ridden month of September, was to get out to sea in the good boat Puffin. It was quite a windy month, which somewhat restricted our swimming in the more exposed locations, but almost everywhere we stopped (tied up or anchored) showed how life underwater had progressed in the last two years.

There are, quite simply, more fish than there used to be. One species, of which we are very fond, the saddled bream, is very friendly, and gathers under the hull pretty well as soon as Puffin is brought to a halt. They always appeared like this on the reef of the Marine Reserve off the cliffs south of Banyuls, but now we were finding them, in significant numbers, in new locations – bays where previously they did not appear. And, while September on the reef was always more busy with fish than June, this year Martine encountered the lovely salema in numbers which she had never experienced before, numbers which would not shame a glossy TV nature programme.

Despite the fact that individuals certainly do fish on the Reserve (and fishing boats seem to come rather close to it, too), there can be no doubt that the Marine Reserve is doing precisely what it is intended to do; fish populations are building up and spreading out to further locations.

The only new species we have to offer this year does not really arouse much enthusiasm – because it is a jelly-fish; one, apparently, called the ‘fried egg jelly-fish”. We saw three of them…

Saddled Bream

Salema

A totally different place, of which we are very fond, is the foothills of Canigou which we simply call ‘the Batère’. This upland was once mined for iron-ore, and there are some traces still of this activity, including some obvious quarry locations. The zigzag tracks which lead gently uphill were no doubt used to transport the ore but have now greened over and make for easy walking. We always used to access one of these tracks via a short, steep section of hill, which was mostly grazed meadow, full of wildflowers and wonderful for butterflies. The very first, short section of this route is even steeper, and involved pushing our way through a few bushes of broom and a little bracken. Two years on, it was a major battle to get through the explosion of new growth and, once we had, we found that our little ‘alp’ had hardly been grazed this year; the grass was long and lank, and there had been far fewer wildflowers. The worst was yet to com – at the top of the alp we used to work our way to a bend in the easy track; now it is a nightmare of broom, concealing tangles of bramble and hidden nettles, which was hell to struggle through…in shorts!

I have noted before that the grazed area of these foothills, so good for wildflowers and butterflies, is slowly being colonised from the nearby conifer woods, gradually losing its wonderful biodiversity. Here, in only two years, we have proof of this process; the cattle and ponies had not broken through to graze down our little alp and it is likely slowly to disappear altogether.

And a final note: September, as I said, was unusually humid, much, apparently to the delight of insects. That particular characteristic seems to have applied to much of the Southern France – as we drove north at the end of our stay, right up the country our windscreen was splattered with insects in a way we had not seen for decades. We certainly suffered from the hordes of mosquitoes; we can only hope that insect-eating birds had a bonanza before setting off on their migration south! We had watched huge groups of swallows and martins all through our stay in France – perhaps the humid weather had at least done them good.

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Watching the Garden

17/11/2020

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by Robin Noble

In recent years, the contribution to overall knowledge, especially of the natural world, made by “Citizen Science”, has frequently been emphasised in magazines and books. This refers to the value of regular observations, made through time, of appearances or changes in our wildlife, collected by any of us and properly recorded. During this year, which for most of us has been notable for its disruption, we have learnt that gaps in such observations can be equally interesting...

The combination of Covid-19, and moving to, and renovating, a house elsewhere, has meant that Martine and I have been away from France for thirteen months. We managed to arrive here just in time for lockdown, so most of our observations have been in, or from, the garden; (more of a jungle after such a long absence!).

The mostly-blue skies above us have been pretty quiet, apart from the occasional mewing of a buzzard, or shrieking of a jay. The little birds around us have, however, kept on calling: the wagtails and young black redstarts on the roofs below our house are nearly always evident, as are the robins and blackbirds among all the overgrown bushes. The hedges still harbour the almost invisible warblers; the blackcap to one side, and the Sardinian to the other, although what sound like bad-tempered outbursts may indicate some arguments over these neat territories. The big pines are still visited by tits; these have included long-tails and cresties, while a tree-creeper has thoroughly investigated all the crevices in the red bark...(just as a nuthatch did while I was writing these words!).

So much, you may say, is normal; reassuringly normal in fact. But the garden itself is showing up some fundamental changes. We now have moss growing in what used to be hard bare ground or sparse, seasonal grass. Some tiny ferns, which used to grow a couple of inches and then wilt, are several times that size, and spreading. A sort of tree fern, parked in a pot which faces both south and west, is doing well, while in previous years it would certainly have died without watering. While all this just shows that this year has been wetter than normal, it reinforces the message that overall, our climates are changing; they tend to be more unstable, more humid, more given to heavy rainfall. That the River Tech has experienced at least one dramatic spate in the last year was made clear on my “regulation” walk last Sunday, when I walked to a bathing-pool upstream from where we live in Reynes. There used to be a gentle, small sand beach leading down to the calm and inviting pool, but the two are now severed by a new, massive slope of rounded boulders, which would make access for bathing significantly more difficult than it used to be.

And the garden has revealed an aspect of plant “behaviour” which I had not fully grasped.
Our garden has a sort of rather wilder fringe, below the pines and behind the tidier bushes and internal hedges. For part of the year, this has tended to be bare ground, into which various plants have seeded. Most of them are horribly thorny, but one is not. This is a cistus or rock rose, the type with soft grey-green leaves and pretty pink, calico-like flowers, which grows wild on the hills behind us; it is, I think, Cistus albidus. There was none in our garden when we arrived some eight years ago; then it appeared in one corner of the wilder zone. It seeds prolifically and has spread westwards, but it is now dying out where it first emerged (despite the higher rainfall), failing a bit in the area it next took over, and doing well in a totally new bed where it had just arrived a year ago. Short-lived, therefore, and seeding prolifically, rapidly colonising new areas; these are, when you think about it, ideal characteristics for a plant growing in an area accustomed both to great summer heat and dryness, and to fire.

Interesting?!

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The Wasp & the Spider

3/8/2020

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by Lesley McLaren

24th July, despite the heat, I decided to check on a small colony of bee eaters nesting in the north bank of the Tech near the Moulin de Breuil vineyard. There wasn't much activity - only two nest holes still being visited by adults as far as I could see - so perhaps the others had fledged already. Apart from the surprise sighting of a honey buzzard, carrying prey, there were few other birds in evidence. It was a different story for insects, of course; high summer is truly their time. July is marked by the constant grate of cicadas in trees, by grasshoppers and crickets hopping out of your way in grassland, by flashes of colour from beetles, butterflies, dragons and damsels as well as the equally important, if arguably less welcome, flies and wasps.

After a while I left the river and headed along the flood defence wall towards the pond and wetland area of "Les Bachous". Eyes down now, looking out for dragonflies, which seem to love this hot spot, what brought me to halt and lift my camera was a different, big insect crossing my path. At first glance, its black-tipped yellow wings made me think it might be an exotic kind of fly. It didn't seem to notice me until I changed position to get a better photo, whereupon it opened its wings, to reveal a black and yellow striped abdomen. More likely a wasp, therefore. If I stood still, it closed its wings and carried on wandering - apparently aimlessly - but each time I moved, it flashed another warning. Clearly it was perfectly aware of me. Given its size (about 30mm) and how badly I react to stings from much smaller social wasps, I moved on.

Like the river, the pond appeared relatively quiet. There were the usual Floridan turtles, mallard, coot and little grebe. On my way to the north eastern end of the plateau above the water, a couple of herons took off from the trees beyond. The first was grey but, to my great and happy surprise, the second was purple. Unlike the grey, he or she circled round to fly very close - checking me out, I'm sure. Purples aren't common in the PO and currently there are no known breeding pairs, so this was a special moment.

Since it had rained a little the night before, I climbed a few feet up a bank to see if there were any fox prints around a large hole that I assumed was a den, having seen a young fox in just this spot in May. Instead of prints, however, I came upon another big wasp, like the one seen moments before. This one was running backwards at high speed, dragging a huge wolf spider in its jaws. Before I could even try to get a photo, it had disappeared backwards into the murky depths of the den! Unlikely there would be foxes here now, I thought, if these wasps had taken over occupancy. Talk about up-sizing your residence!

Seconds later, I spotted two more wasps running around frenetically a few feet away. These I managed to capture on film. The first few seconds are at full speed. Then I've slowed it by 50% (hence the "ralenti" in French) so the action is clearer.

Warning: some viewers may find this short scene disturbing.

Cryptocheilus alternatus (Pompile) (Spider-hunting wasp) from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

In retrospect I think their initial crazy manner of running was because they had lost the spider they had previously stung and perhaps left while the venom took hold. The spider in this clip is smaller than the first, which made me wonder if this one was a male and the first, female. Not their lucky day if they had been together with amorous intent at the time they were set upon. Unfortunately for the spiders, they weren't dead, just paralysed. Their destiny from then on was to have a single egg laid inside them and to be eaten alive by the emerging larva. A reminder how, at times, nature can be gruesome.

To end with more pleasant images, I'll leave you with a bee eater (who may have one of those wasps in his beak, who knows?) and the purple heron, both from that morning, although the full beauty of each is somewhat hidden against the light.

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Mole Cricket Serenade

9/5/2020

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By Lesley McLaren

In early April, not long after nightfall (around 9.30), I was indoors and had just turned off the television when I became aware of very loud trilling coming from outside. All the more extraordinary to be able to hear it with the double glazed windows and external doors closed. It seemed to be louder at the front of the house, and when I opened the dining room windows it was piercing! It had to be some kind of grasshopper or cricket. For the next half hour or so it continued intermittently and then silence descended once more.

It resumed for the next several evenings, always between 9 and 10 o'clock. Tramping about the garden, I finally homed in on an area of hedge at the front, close to a streetlamp. Even with the streetlight and a torch I stood no chance of seeing anything among all those leaves, however, and at that distance the decibel level was really quite painful, so I was forced to retreat, frustrated.

Excitement returned when, from a recording of the "song" on my phone, a member of the local bird group subsequently identified the singer: a species of mole cricket. I've only ever seen one or two of these - years apart - on early morning walks in the vineyards, and never expected to discover one in my front garden. After learning that they trill from burrows, not hedges, I duly found a hole around where I'd been tramping back and forth! I'd been told to look for two small holes close together but this was on its own and struck me as impressively large for a cricket's burrow. Nevertheless, since it was so conveniently positioned, I had to stake it out.

By mid-April I had not only heard but also seen him, several nights running. But it seemed I might not have been the only one on stake-out. At dusk one evening I crept outside with tripod, camera and torch, only to find a cat sitting right by the hole. Coincidence, or could it smell the cricket? It was certainly very reluctant to leave!

Mole Cricket (Gryllotalpa vineae) from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

The storm that was building on my last night of filming turned into continuous rain for several days. This scuppered my plan to continue watching in the hope of witnessing the arrival of a female lured by the serenade. With water levels rising, I increasingly worried for the cricket, and my fears seemed realised when the burrow entrance filled in with soil. Every morning, for days afterwards, I checked in case he had re-excavated it; but no. Every evening I listened for him, but could only hear more of his kind in the distance.

It was 27th April when I spotted two small holes, about a foot apart, in the back garden this time, on the edge of a border by what passes as our lawn. They were about the right diameter but the entrance to neither had yet been sculpted into an amphitheatre like the one in the front garden. I staked them out for a night or two at the witching hour between 9 and 10, but there was no activity or sound. Then we had more rain and one of the two entrances filled in with soil. If this had ever been a burrow, it seemed abandoned now.

Eight days later, when cutting the grass, I came across the body of a mole cricket within a few feet of the holes. At first I feared I'd mown him up (even though they are usually nocturnal), but closer inspection showed that he'd been dead for a while. Ants or other creatures had already had a go at him and he was in quite a fragile, desiccated state.

I should perhaps have been relieved, since mole crickets feed mostly on plant roots and are hated by vineyard owners and market gardeners, but this discovery made me very sad. Having never noticed them in my garden previously, it's perhaps unlikely I would suddenly find two, within days of each other, so I do believe this was "him". Come to think of it, that same cat had also been crouched near this part of the garden too, one evening. My hypothesis is that the rain forced the unlucky cricket out of his second burrow, whereupon he was predated by something. I don't think my dog is to blame in this instance, because he would have eaten the catch (being very partial to Egyptian grasshoppers). A cat, on the other hand, might well kill and leave it. Except cats don't like rain...

At least this gave me an opportunity to examine him more closely, especially those amazing, spade-like front feet, and it was a surprise to find him quite hairy! So I photographed and measured him (about 5cm from nose to the end of his abdomen, not including spikes), before giving him a dignified burial in the spot where he first set up home at the front of the house.

If you don't like to look at dead things, scroll down quickly and don't click on these photos to enlarge!

On a lighter note, here I am during filming, in my PEE (Protective Ear Equipment). The things we do for the love of nature!

Sorry this phone video appears so enormous compared with camera video of cricket. Can't reduce myself!

The Making of Cricketwatch from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

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Ambitions Realised

19/9/2019

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By Robin Noble Photos by Martine Noble

We had long thought of spending a night up at the Batere, and this September we achieved it. It must be admitted, however, that it did not all go according to plan. We had been a little worried about flies, and had chosen what was expected to be a breezy night; there were, indeed, few flies, but there was a strong, cold wind all through the hours of darkness. It so happened, too, that the cows had decided to take up residence close to the best place for parking the old campervan; their bells may be evocative during the day and in the distance, but when you are trying to sleep and they are close by, they sound rather less poetic … and one cow, standing very close to us (despite being moved on a couple of times), was into heavy breathing. So, we did not sleep that well, but it was nice to wake up and see the sun steal over Vallespir; a nice, peaceful morning ...

For a short while. Fortunately, we were up and dressed before les chasseurs arrived. We had not thought of them, but it was, after all, mid-September and a Sunday morning. They were quite pleasant and indicated that if we aimed to go higher up the gentle hills, we could come to no harm; they were going to be in the dense wood and shrubland below the road. That indeed turned out to be true, and I have to say we were most impressed by the safety measures they put in place. Notices were placed, orange vests worn by everyone, and observers with walkie-talkies posted at regular intervals along the track to the tower, which is where most visitors would venture. There were a few higher up, too, as we discovered, as we walked up our usual route towards the col between the rounded summits.

Once round the corner, into what we think of as “marmot-land”, there was no noise, and we began to relax. There were some marmots to be seen, one presumably rather old, with a white muzzle, but they were generally wary and offered no great photo-opportunities. We did wonder what exactly they were getting to eat, as all the grass was brown and dead, cropped short. The whole place was drier than we had ever seen it, and, in addition, there were far more sheep. Given how readily sheep die, it was a surprise only to see one vulture during the entire day.

Realising the other ambition was a matter of pure luck. Neither of us was feeling that great, but when the forecast was for another hot day with calm seas, we summoned up the energy to get out in the boat. We are so glad we did. There were countless fish on the Marine Reserve; around the rocks, curtains of bream hanging almost motionless, and the densest masses of salema (rather as you imagine shoals of herring used to be) we have ever seen.

Later in the day we headed down to our lovely Spanish beach, and in its shallow lagoon, Martine found a group of a bream we had not seen before. These were striped bream.

On land, when I ventured ashore, the last of the ethereal sea daffodils was still in bloom.

After a while, the sun largely disappeared in high cloud, and we decided that if we aimed to head back northwards, a bit out from the coast, then we might stay in its gentle light. This we did, and while still in Spanish waters, we noticed something moving, occasionally splashing well ahead of us. So we speeded up, and headed in that direction, to find that we had met a small group, (maybe eight or nine individuals), of dolphins. They were, very firmly, heading south, not in a greatly playful mood, so only very occasionally and quickly breaching. Mostly, we just saw part of the back, and the fin, but had good views of these, and eventually, one or two passable photographs.

Our estimate is that they were maybe six to eight feet in length, perhaps more, and we never saw any colour – just a dark, wet, grey.

We only have a couple of books from which to judge, by the shape of the fin, which species they might be, and it is not easy to decide, but, on balance, we think they were bottle-nosed dolphins. There was certainly no apparent light colouring on their sides, which characterises the common or striped, which are the other likely candidates. But, in a way, it was not the ID that mattered.

Here, in the Mediterranean sunshine, off our wonderful coast, we had met a group of fellow inhabitants of this planet. They were strong, sturdy, aware of us and unworried, intent on their own lives and requirements, deserving of respect … how better could you end a day at sea?

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Revised Impressions and a "new" flower

17/9/2019

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By Robin Noble Photos by Martine Noble

Back for September, and back to the usual routine; taking to the sea when it is hot and humid, and we get tired of applying insect repellent!

With a coast where you can really only head north or south, and where we usually launch in one of two places, there inevitably comes a feeling of routine – you head this way or that – but the weather and the water conditions change constantly, so each day is different. And we are still finding new, tiny, rocky coves where you can land if the sea is right, and explore the small, stony beaches under the great cliffs. There seem to be more boats on the water, so we don’t always get to anchor in our favourite locations, but this season we succeeded in landing in one such place, behind a small rocky islet, under the huge black cliffs towards Port Bou.

We had passed this way in July and felt that the cliffs were significantly quieter than previously, but this latest time it was very different. We anchored in our usual spot, and as I swam slowly out past the little islet, rising on the gentle swell, enjoying the silken coolness of the sea, in the air above me all was hectic, noise and rush, as groups of swifts volleyed out from the high rocks. Squadrons of them were flying in all directions, screaming as they went, hurtling out over the sea. As before, there did appear to be two sizes of bird, and they flew differently too, one noticeably more rapidly than the other. We deduced, therefore, that we were again watching the “ordinary” swifts, which we also see in the heart of the old towns, and the alpine swifts, which are significantly larger. The latter have white patches on their fronts, but when seen from below, silhouetted against the brilliant sun, this was not easily spied. We estimated, terribly roughly, that we might be seeing two-hundred-and-fifty birds, but it was hardly more than a guess … and a magnificent spectacle!

Martine, as ever, has been energetically photographing fish, and has managed pictures of three species which we don’t see often: these have included the striped red mullet, the axillary wrasse, and what might be some kind of cornetfish.

Striped red mullet

Axillary wrasse

Rainbow wrasse

Young cornetfish?

On the calmest days, we get quite far into Spanish waters, and go to a favourite large bay with a number of sandy beaches. The best of these is fronted by a shallow lagoon, while, between the sand and the rocks behind it, is a smallish area of what I suppose we might call “bents”; rough grasses like marram growing out of the sand, with some thistle-type plants and patches of succulents. Scattered among them, were the lovely white blossoms of Pancratium maritimum or sea daffodil (the Catalan name is lliri de mar). I read that this is native to the Canary Islands, around the Mediterranean, and through to the Black Sea, so it has a truly exotic appeal to folk who lived for decades in the furthest North of Scotland! It is vulnerable, of course, to trampling by folk approaching the beach, and such places are, all-too-often, developed for tourism, so it is quite a privilege to see it blooming well.

I am fairly certain that it also grows between our own local Etang and the sea, just north of the Fishermen’s Huts we often refer to. On a recent visit there, we headed in this direction for the first time, looking for a second hide which is marked on the large map beside the Information Cabin. We did not find it (turns out it was burnt down some years ago!), but we did see some old leaves and large seed-heads which look to me as if they, too, must be the beautiful sea daffodil.

On this occasion, there were more flamingos on the Etang than we had ever seen before. We wanted the perfect photo of Canigou with its first delicate snows of the autumn, seen between the markedly pink flamingos but, sadly, they refused to co-operate! We did also see one very emphatic crested lark, a handsome male kestrel and, slightly to my surprise, a lone curlew. And from the one remaining hide, we could see biggish, handsome, silver fish, moving in a series of leaps, something which, again, we had not seen here before; we think they were sea bass.

There is nearly always something new!

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Butterfly Day in the Garden

15/8/2019

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By Lesley McLaren

A light north-westerly breeze has cleared the humidity this week, with the result that I have enjoyed not only being able to breathe more freely but also spending time in the full sun with my camera - if no further afield than the garden.

Following some new planting in the spring, some borders have stayed colourful for longer this summer. Lantana have done particularly well and yesterday were proving more attractive than buddleia and plumbago to butterflies. At one point mid-morning I realised there was an unusual amount of activity in the garden at the same time, so decided to check what they all were and to see how many different species visited during the day overall.

I was hoping for a two-tailed Pasha and a chance to photograph the spectacular patterning and colours of the underside to their wings - impossible to see, never mind appreciate, with the naked eye. After reading recently that these never take nectar from flowers, but feed exclusively on fruit, I understood why my garden wouldn't interest them but thought there was a chance a female might be tempted to lay eggs on my neighbour's Strawberry Tree. It wasn't to be; they were probably all round at Isobel's, whose garden currently offers an abundance of juicy figs.

The Cleopatras, Brimstones and Great Banded Graylings of recent weeks seemed to have disappeared, and a White Admiral I spotted a few days ago didn't put in an appearance either. However, my tally still came to eight, which I felt was respectably high.

Roughly in size order: Cardinal, Silver-washed Fritillary, Painted Lady, Queen of Spain Fritillary (a first for my garden), Meadow Brown, Green-veined White (I think - 2nd brood?), Lang's Short-tailed Blue and Geranium Bronze.

I'm ashamed to say I tend to pay little attention to Painted Ladies because they're so common, here and in the UK. But my photos revealed just how beautiful they are, wings closed as well as open. In a different way, the Queen of Spain frit's underside is also striking - a kind of crazy paving design. Of course for some species - especially the blues - patterning under the wing is often the only way to identify them. Even so, it's not always easy. I'm fairly confident that yesterday's blue is a Lang's short-tailed and not a Long-tailed. The tail is in fact long in both, so that doesn't help at all!

Click images to enlarge

What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours on, it's still breezy, but overcast - with not a butterfly in sight!

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From the Garden to the Sea

23/7/2019

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By Robin Noble

If you are permitted to count as "garden birds" those you can see in the sky above the home patch, we are slowly amassing an impressive list of raptors; the latest, observed clearly from the terrace in front of the house, has been a circling griffon vulture, which joins the golden and short-toed eagles, buzzards, sparrow-hawks and kestrels so far observed. Not bad for a suburban garden in the well-populated Vallespir!

Like most of the houses here, we have thick hedges and lots of bushes in the said garden; very slowly, over the years, I have observed a few of the creatures (other than birds) we share it with. I have suspected for a few years that among those was at least one hedgehog, and again this year have observed droppings which suggested that somewhere in all the undergrowth lurked one of our prickly friends. Sadly, as is so often the case, it proved me right by venturing out through our gate and being run over by a car…

We have fled to the open sea on several occasions in order to avoid the heat which has so suddenly hit us this year. Here, as ever, our observations are not scientifically precise, but we are sure of some general trends. One comment has to be that the Marine Reserve off Banyuls is having a clear and beneficial effect on fish numbers, both in the protected area and elsewhere. It used to be the case that while we saw a number of fish of different species there, there was almost nothing to be seen in some of the other attractive coves beneath the great cliffs, where we anchor and swim regularly. Now, almost everywhere, the friendly saddled bream soon gather beneath our modest craft, and we are seeing more, and bigger fish on the Reserve itself.

There are definitely rather more gulls (still modest in number and behaviour compared to the British!), and this year we have seen larger groups of Sandwich terns, some 35 in three parties on one day. They still mystify us, as we never yet have seen them fishing; when DO they feed!?

And another bird seems to be doing well this year. Down towards Port Bou, there was always one part of the great black cliffs where swifts nested; there may be fewer of them there this year, but they are using a number of other cliffs this summer, including those under the lighthouse on Cap Béar.

There is always something to note and wonder over…

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Upland Sample

15/7/2019

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By Robin Noble Photos by Martine Noble

Back late to PO after a muddled spring in the UK, but somehow the muddle persisted, with our beloved old campervan spending two weeks in the very friendly and competent local garage. One day, we took our old Citroen up to the upland we always simply call “the Batère”, in order to get away from the phone, and had the usual lovely day up there, watching marmots and looking at the wonderful display of spring flowers.

We stopped regularly to photograph them, and remarked, as ever, on the incredible diversity; wherever we stopped, there were more, and different flowers in bloom. We started wondering quite how many species, throughout the spring, summer and autumn, actually flourish up here. A comprehensive survey would be an enormous task, and one which we are far too lazy and disorganised to do!

We halted at the col between two of the rounded hills above the road to the old tower, and enjoyed the view of Canigou and valleys to the west and north. Below the rocky area at the col, the ground slopes away quite steeply, and is moderately wooded, with a lot of smallish pines. These may be quite young, or, as likely, limited in their growth by the altitude and strong winds. Looking, however, at a small sample of the flowers blooming on the slope, it seems probable that the small trees represent regeneration from the neighbouring densely wooded and rocky slopes, over former high-level meadowland. I wandered around looking at the flowers…

We had seen gentians on the way up, with one of the lovely trumpet-shaped type (Gentiana acaulis); here there were lots of those with the central white spot to the flower (Gentiana verna). There was a tiny forgetmenot, possibly Myosotis alpestris, although it looked much more compact than in the illustrations I could find, and something which looked rather like a meadow saxifrage. (This may have been Saxifraga granulata.) Reminding me of the Highlands were some beautiful mountain everlasting (Antennaria dioica), tiny and complex, but the star of those immediately around us were the big yellow anemone-like Pulsatilla alpina subspecies apiifolia, which, being in the ranunculus family, is rather closer to the buttercups. Some of them, like the gentians, looked a little wilted, due no doubt to the winds we had been having.

Gentiana acaulis

Forgetmenot (possibly Myosotis alpestris)

Mountain everlasting (Antennaria dioica)

Gentiana verna

Saxifraga granulata (possibly)

Pulsatilla alpina - subspecies apiifolia

Apart from all the flowers, and the fun of stalking marmots, it was quite a quiet day; not many birds, really, but one made up for all the missing others; a cuckoo called for much of the time we were up there, its evocative music blending with all the bells on the sheep, cattle and horses. Two hot weeks later, all the flowers listed above were over, but in places the big yellow gentian, Gentiana lutea, apparently one of the iconic flowers of the Pyrenees, was already coming out; it seems to have enjoyed this year’s complex weather, and is growing strongly in many places.