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More Sights at Sea & in the Garden

11/7/2014

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by Robin Noble

We have been out on the sea several times now, from Argelès mainly, once from Banyuls, and one slightly more adventurous trip which is, strictly, not relevant to these blogs, as it was out of Cadaqués. These outings have confirmed what I had always thought must be the case from reading the map, and that is that we have an impressive and interesting coastline. The rock features may not include many arches, there are really no stacks and only a few caves, but the cliffs and headlands are wild and craggy, formed of metamorphic schist with "injected" and very contorted volcanic rock, and there are a number of tiny bays where you can haul a boat out, swim and have a picnic. Most of these features are hard to glimpse from the land, let alone the road, and you have to take to the water to see the best of it.

A considerable number of people explore the underwater richness of this coast from the many dive-boats, but there is also the "sentier sous-marin", a sort of underwater nature trail in a bay near Cerbère. Martine (my watery partner) reports that it seems popular and provides some quite interesting snorkelling, while not being as good as one of the stations out on the Marine Reserve. (me? I was just swimming in circles round the boat!). We reckon that on these trips (seven this month), we may have seen ten different species of fish close-to, but have not yet managed to identify them all, (including the two most attractive species, one horizontally striped, one with lovely blue fins, that swam around my feet in one of the nice swimming bays near Collioure!) We are now looking for a book which will help us identify these different fish. Other, bigger, fish are certainly about, but all we have really seen so far are substantial splashings ahead of the boat.


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Back on land, in the garden, the exotic nature of our life here (easy to take for granted after a while), was confirmed by a splendid sighting of a hoopoe in the front garden; the intricate and dramatic patterning on its folded wings was wonderful to study closely. This "front garden", like every part of our small domain, does without the immaculate, constantly watered grass which some people achieve. Ours is rough and dry, and wildflowers are allowed to go to seed, which has brought the goldfinches in lately on a number of occasions. They may not be as exotic as the hoopoe, but they are very colourful and I love their tinkling call. And now we have greenfinches apparently building a nest in one of the tall cypresses (surely this is very late?). Sardinian warblers have been having constant hysterics in the hedges between us and our neighbours, to the extent that I wonder whether that red eye indicates a bird with high blood pressure. In some contrast, the marsh tit has been demurely slipping through the bushes, although occasionally it emerges, imitating a fly-catcher as it makes a rapid sortie into the open.

Now, reluctantly, we are both returning, (fairly briefly) to Scotland, where everything will, as ever, be totally different. Vive la différence!

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Of Small Creatures

3/7/2014

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by Robin Noble

It is strange how you can experience a 'run' of things; you may see the same bird constantly for a few days, for instance. In my case, a few days ago, it was little creatures, which we rarely see.

In our garden we have a silly small pond; when we looked at the house before buying, it had fish in it, which we did not want. They duly went, but we still don't know what to do with it. It gets full of leaves and Saharan sand and generally looks rather unpleasant. Recently, it was drying up in the warm temperatures, and I hoped it would complete the process so that I could get into it, and give it a good clean. The recent thundery rain, however, has thwarted that hope, and it has had about half an inch of gunge in the bottom. I happened to check it one morning, and realised that sitting bolt upright in it, looking rather nervous, was a tiny mouse. I have no idea whether it had just fallen in, or had jumped in for some water, but it obviously could not get back up the sheer, slippery sides of the pool. I tried to catch it with the little net I use to retrieve leaves from the water, and eventually did so, but not before I had taken my sandals off and stood in the wet ooze! I duly tipped the wee mouse off on the bank and it disappeared into the hedge.

That one was obviously unharmed, but this morning I found another (or the same one?), who was not so lucky and had expired. They belonged clearly to the same species, and had fairly short tails. I think this must be the mouse which my invaluable "L'Albera" book names as the "souris à queue courte" or "mus spretus". I don't have a book of mammals in English, but think this is the Algerian mouse or western Mediterranean mouse. There are not many distinguishing marks - it is just small!

The evening after I rescued the first mouse, Martine happened to glance outdoors and said that there was a tiny frog sitting quietly on the tiles. So there was, and it continued to sit there peacefully while I took a few photos of it with flash. It was obviously the tiny green rainette méridionale, which lives in our hedges and makes such a noise at night. We had never seen one before, and it seemed odd that it was just there on the terrace tiles - there had been no rain, and they were bone-dry and still warm to the touch. I also wonder where these local frogs spawn; like so many other places around here, everything seems to be dry, prickly and stony!

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We have, of course, got geckos, which we occasionally see catching the odd moth. For quite a lot of the year they live behind the shutters, and closing the shutters without trapping a gecko inside the house is quite an art! They always seem to slide away again some how, and don't hang around for long. They are not very colourful, but seem to be able to take on the colour of their surroundings: a few which live in the dark stone of the terrace wall, can look almost black. I assume they must be the ones the book calls:" tarente de Maurétanie"- they certainly make an attractive addition to the local fauna!

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    Bruce Hyde
    Isobel Mackintosh
    Lesley McLaren
    Robin Noble

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