Mediterranean Pyrenees
  • Home
  • About
  • Galleries
    • Birds of the Mediterranean Pyrenees >
      • Common Birds of the Mediterranean Pyrenees by Isobel
    • Weather in the Mediterranean Pyrenees >
      • Weather: skies and storms in the Mediterranean Pyrenees
      • Clouds above the Mediterranean Pyrenees by Isobel
      • The summer of 2015 by Isobel
    • Bruce's Pix >
      • Beetles, Bugs and other insects
      • Birds
      • Butterflies
      • Butterflies of La Batère
      • Canigou
      • Castles
      • Dragonflies
      • Flowers
      • Pyrenees Landscapes
      • TGV
      • UK photos
    • Isobel's Images >
      • Isobel's favourite images
      • Springtime in an Alberes garden
      • In the garden
      • Tour de Batere, spring 2015 with Robin Noble
    • Lesley's Snaps >
      • Insects & Arachnids
      • Bees
      • Birds
      • Les Albères
      • Elsewhere in the region
    • Robin's Photos
    • Martine's Photos
    • GUESTS' Gallery
  • Birdsong
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Contact

Magic and Mystery in the Mountains

29/4/2014

0 Comments

 
by Robin Noble

It can be quite easy to forget, at times, the sheer vertical scale of this landscape: despite the flatness of the plain of the Roussillon, our surroundings have a mountainous aspect which nowhere in Britain can match. One result of this is that you can change seasons quite easily - by driving up into the mountains. This means, for instance, that if you are lamenting the disappearance of the cherry blossom around Céret, (and it was lovely), then you can catch up with it again, perhaps by driving up Vallespir, on to the higher shoulders of Canigou. We did this less than two weeks ago, heading up towards Montferrer, and leaving the car at a viewpoint between that village and Corsavy.

One or two tracks lead you from a large parking area towards an easy ridge which takes you up to the craggy site of an old castle. This is a place that I first discovered on that momentous family holiday in a gite close to Montferrer, and have loved ever since. It has wonderful views, both out to the Roussillon and the Mediterranean, and up to the peaks and ridges of Canigou, still outlined with the brilliance of snow. We had our sandwiches up on the scanty ruins of the castle, admiring the slopes beneath us which were splashed with the softer white of the wild cherry blossom. Somewhere close by, a cuckoo was calling. While Martine dozed in the sun, I looked around the low walls and bushes and was pleased to find the first cowslips of the year - this is a plant I have always loved but not that often seen: I remember that when I was very small, we found expanses of it on the sandy coasts near Elie in Fife and, decades later, I was delighted to find some smaller but thriving colonies in similar places in Orkney. Here, it really seems, (mystifyingly to me!), to be a woodland plant- and, true enough, on a high, forest road on the south side of the valley, I found a lot of it growing on the verges and in small meadows, while driving around on Easter Sunday.

Here it was accompanied by the deep blue aquilegia or columbine, another of my favourite flowers. Again, slightly strangely, in Orkney, in the exposed and sandy conditions so prevalent there, we had a garden aquilegia of a deeper blue. It bloomed later of course, but seeded prolifically, and made a wonderful show in the summer.

On the way up to the castle, in the fast-growing young woodland we had looked at some beautiful wild anemones. Although you could justifiably call them "wood anemones", (and "the book" seems to suggest they must be anemone nemorosa), some of them, too, were distinctly blue in colour. This might be something to do with the nature of the local rock, perhaps, or a local variation?

Local walks at the moment are making me sneeze: I think it must be the heavenly scent of the false acacia tree, something like a white laburnum, but with thorns! The woodland paths are really lovely just now; although the big, white heather is fast going over, the wonderful, floppy-petalled, brilliant pink cistus is in full bloom, the smaller white one is just beginning and the soft broom is wonderful - the humming of the bees is constant at the moment. On my favourite walk recently, which is overhung with all these blooming bushes, I was trying to walk very quietly - it is actually quite difficult normally, with all the dry gravel, leaves, twigs and fallen acorns! On this occasion, though, I think I succeeded because I met a fox on the narrow path. Because there was no breeze and he did not get my scent, I had a few good views of him as he tried to assess whether the totally still figure in front of him was a threat. I think he was fairly old, or at least had hardly begun to moult out his winter coat, as he would hardly qualify as a "red fox" at all, looking mostly brown with a touch of grey. When he did decide that discretion was the better part of valour, he was, however, noticeably quick and light on his feet.

Our group is paying a lot of attention to bird-calls at the moment. Now that the wryneck has been triumphantly identified, I have been hearing it regularly from the house; they seem fairly vocal in flight. Birds heard one night, however, have rather stumped me; it was a beautiful night and just before bed I had gone out on to the terrace to look at the stars. As soon as I got out, I rather forgot about them, as it was clear that a few large birds were flying along the valley, calling as they went. The noise was very strange, vaguely like that of a goose crossed with a turkey, which is a description I immediately remembered Lesley had given to cranes flying at night. I went immediately to my trusty Bird-App, and spent the next half-hour listening to storks, geese, swans, even cranes - but the sound of cranes in flight was that of thousands of birds, while I had been hearing maybe three or four. In any case, why, around the 20th of April would three cranes be heading up Vallespir into the mountains? If they were not cranes, what on earth were they?



0 Comments

Springing to life

15/4/2014

0 Comments

 
By Isobel Mackintosh

I love spring in this area.  After the long, dark, cold winter, when everything in the garden hunkers down against the inhospitable temperatures and the bitterly cold Tramontane, spring is the time for a new start, and to see wonderful, new things. What better time to return to the Mediterranean Pyrenees?

Our tiny garden beneath the Alberes has been shut-down, bare-earth-brown until now, with the only colour coming from an olive tree's slender blue green leaves holding on against the wind, and a Mandarine tree providing a small oasis of deep, rich green.  For a time there are some shiny bright orange splodges there too, but only briefly, because the mandarines are always so deliciously more-ish that they rarely last beyond January. 

Now the garden is coming alive again with the sights and sounds of a new year of growth.  The bare cherry tree is suddenly transformed, covered in fluffy, white blossom within a matter of days.  Bees are buzzing around it in the sun, and butterflies appear, as if by magic, all flitting busily from flower to flower.  Those tiny winter buds on the fig tree suddenly grow and small bright yellow-green leaves burst out, together with the tiniest green globes, which, all being well, will become sweet syrupy figs by June.

The bird feeders we put up bring in many old friends:  it's good to see that the (almost tame) robins that have staked out our little garden as their own are busily fluttering around, and it's lovely to hear the nuthatch's whistling call again.  There is a definite hierarchy among them: blue tits are the bravest, and are first onto the feeders after a disturbance, closely followed by the robins and the great tits.  Only then will a shy Sardinian warbler, or blackcap appear quietly, and surreptitiously eat a few beak-fulls before darting away into the safe haven of our bay tree, which is currently in flower.  But those birds all instinctively back away when the nuthatch flies in, aggressively pecking away whilst occasionally checking out the immediate area for threats.  The magpie's nest in a neighbouring pine tree is uncharacteristically quiet at the moment, but the birds are around, causing the songbirds to scatter in seconds, I assume to return to guarding their nests. 

A couple of days ago I was in the garden, quietly sorting a few things out (tea leaves make excellent rose fertiliser, I've been told, so we are putting that to the test this year).  I took my camera with me, and to my surprise (I was wearing a bright pink t-shirt) found that birds were visiting the feeders as if I wasn't there. Often I heard the flutter of their wings before seeing them darting to or from the feeders.  Sometimes they were even too close to photograph - I couldn't believe my luck!  I also spotted a large, but surprisingly well-camouflaged butterfly flying around the cherry tree.  It was a scarce swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) that had clearly already been in the wars, as one half of its "swallowtail" had disappeared.  The photos from these encounters can be found here.
0 Comments

Spring Rituals

1/4/2014

0 Comments

 
by Robin Noble

I have mentioned before that this house seems quite handy for watching birds, and the view from my bedroom into the little orchard provides some interesting moments. Lately, there have been a few starlings and I have always been quite fond of these rather maligned birds. In large numbers, they may be a nuisance, but we only seem to have about half a dozen and they are fairly quiet. Our noisy birds are definitely the sparrows and these recently gave me an interesting, if brief, view of the rituals attached to their social life.

While I was admiring the plumage of the starlings, two sparrows, one male, one female, flew in - and the ritual began immediately. The male, very dapper, turned his back on the female, and to my surprise, started to dance. He arched his head back, tail up, and danced in an arc around her, facing away from her all the time. (I can't say that she seemed very impressed, she just carried on looking for seeds and tiny scraps of food!). He kept this up for a few minutes, long enough for me to be sure it was definitely some sort of deliberate ritual, not just a random movement. Sadly, before I could see what might happen next, something spooked them, and they flew off.

His dancing reminded me of a step in Scottish Country Dancing, where you do dance round each other, back-to- back. This step is (phonetically) generally called "dozy-do", which is, as you will all immediately have realised: dos-à-dos !!


0 Comments

    Authors

    Bruce Hyde
    Isobel Mackintosh
    Lesley McLaren
    Robin Noble

    Archives

    August 2020
    May 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Categories

    All
    Amphibians
    Arachnids
    Birds
    Bruce Hyde
    Dragonfly Differences
    Insects
    Isobel Mackintosh
    Lesley McLaren
    Mammals
    Marine Life
    Misc
    Mushrooms & Fungi
    Plants
    Reptiles
    Robin Noble
    Sea & Coast
    Tracks/Traces
    Weather

    Click icon for notification of new posts
    Subscribe
Lesley McLaren, Bruce Hyde, Isobel Mackintosh, Robin Noble, Martine Howard, mediterraneanpyrenees.com associates and affiliates do not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, product or process disclosed. Lesley McLaren, Bruce Hyde, Isobel Mackintosh, Robin Noble, Martine Howard, mediterraneanpyrenees.com and affiliates do not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes or services and cannot be held liable for any result of the use of such information, products, processes or services discussed on this website.