France/Spain 2014

[Charles Nicol]

Hi Russ

thanks for sharing those lovely pics with us ! i have enjoyed immensely your thread. there are so many wonderful things to see in France; i still have all of Spain to explore

Charles

[LancsRover]

Thanks Mikhail for wasp ID, I did get very close to them for macro pics, but I must have been lucky as none of them were flying/disturbed.

Cheers Charles for your comment.


6th October 2014 France, I visited the CIRQUE DE NAVACELLES,(north-east of Lodeve) after a German lady told me about this "fantastic place". It was a little way off the A75 m/way but I had a little time to spare so I took her advice and decided to go and find it, she wasn't wrong, it was a fantastic cirque, gorge and beautiful limestone valley, complete with the remains of an oxbow lake, the pics below don't do justice to the scale of the place.
You approach the cirque from above, looking down into a vast hole, eroded by a river over thousands of years, it takes you by surprise, after driving to the area over flatish land, another one of France's many hidden gems as CHARLES pointed out recently(I will explore this area of France again and see the many other cirques including St-Guilhem-le-Desert, maybe next year.)
I drove down into the valley in my motorhome(against my wife's wishes) and out the other side a, brilliant journey but better done in a car though
There were quite a few butterflies flying, numerous Clouded Yellows, all different shades, some with black dots, some without(or faded), could any of my learned friends please tell me if any are different from Colias Crocea ???
Apologies for poor quality of some of the pics.

Cheers Russ

[Roger Gibbons]

If you been there a month earlier I think you would have found it rich in Satyrid species. I was there about five years ago and there were Hermit, Striped/Woodland/Tree/Great Banded Graylings, ordinary Grayling plus Pasha, Lang’s Short-tailed Blue etc. All in all, a very rich area.

I’m fairly sure you have Berger’s CY in there, not sure about Pale CY.

If you’re in that area again and passing through the Dordogne region, try the Gouffre de Padirac - http://www.gouffre-de-padirac.com/#/en

Roger

[Charles Nicol]

What an amazing Cirque ! I would love to visit it.
Very nice Clouded Yellow pics

Charles