Day 2 - Saturday 23rd June
I got up at 8am but was most disappointed to see the same heavy cloud cover as had prevailed the afternoon before.
Having already experienced butterflies' reluctance to be active on such cloudy days in southern France, I decided to take my time and visit Ax town centre and see how things went later on.
Well, by 10.30am things had not improved, but I was determined to at least cover some ground to seek out potential hotspots for when the sun eventually arrived..........little did I know?!?
Whilst standing on the high crag yesterday, I had spotted a scrubby strip of land that seemed to go on forever. I wanted to visit this spot and take a look, and I duly managed to find a way to do so, albeit via a side road, a half mile walk up an unkempt path and a stroll underneath what appeared to be a major road....only it wasn't! All the preparatory work for a highway seemed to have been completed, yet the actual track looked to be at least 3 years neglected:
I did some research on this and it appears that a few years back work started on a major relief road to bypass Ax-les-Thermes and link it with Tarascon, 15 miles further north. The money dried up though and the 'road' has since become a white elephant. Two major bridges have been constructed and are ready for traffic right now.......the problem is that there's no road to link them, as can be seen from this shot I took from the mountain to the north of Ax on the 24th June:
The scar that you see on the right of the picture is this grand, yet uncompleted, construction project. One day I'm sure it will be finished, but in the meantime it presents a superb butterfly habitat, with steep banks on both sides and scrub and herbs growing in profusion. I was so pessimistic about the weather that I actually wore my jeans but within half an hour of arriving at this isolated (and probably illegal to access) site, the sun started breaking up the cloud cover and the temperatures (and butterfly activity) rose by several degrees.
7. Marbled Fritillary
Dark Greens were swooping about in numbers, but Marbled Fritillaries were just as commonplace, though to be certain of which was which you really needed them to either settle or pass very close to you whereupon you can see the detached sub-marginal triangles which readily distinguish Marbleds from Dark Greens. Marbleds were pretty common (maybe slightly less so than Dark Greens) but both seem to like patrolling around the bramble clad banks of this part of the world:
Then came a most exciting moment - a largeish sized Blue that I felt sure I'd never seen in my life before. True enough, I hadn't:
8. Long Tailed Blue
Striking undersides and lovely blue uppers with a prominent hindwing spot and a noticeable tail make this species very attractive indeed. I only saw 5 in the whole time I was here, three of them on this very morning. Here's a male:
The cloud had by now almost completely dispersed and, imbued with enthusiasm, I climbed the bank and immediately found another Long Tailed Blue, this time a fresh female:
She was absolutely stunning, so....time for a 'Padfield' type underside shot:
My senses were primed by now and anything blue in colour was investigated with vigour. Within minutes, something else that seemed most unusual passed by:
9. Lang's Short Tailed Blue
This was the only one I saw and with the sun now high in the sky and no longer being obscured by cloud photographing such a small specimen proved tricky. These were the best shots I could get of this female:
I have practically no knowledge of this species and wasn't expecting to encounter it here, so if anyone has experience of it I'd love to hear about it.
10. Queen of Spain Fritillary
I went back to my rucksack to take a drink of water but whilst I did so, I noticed a QoS nearby, one of 15 to 20 I saw during the week:
I then climbed one of the steep, man made embankments which were laden with shrubs. I wasn't surprised to see my first Hairstreak of the week:
11. Ilex Hairstreak
Hairstreaks were conspicuous by their relative absence around here. I only saw half a dozen of this species:
At the bottom of the embankment where the gravelly track began again, I noticed another unusual looking Blue. I'd already seen a handful of Common Blues, but something made me investigate this one and I was glad I did:
12. Turquoise Blue
This was the only one I saw and I cannot see anything in my
Tolman and Lewington that it could be other than
plebicula dorylas. Please feel free to over-rule me if you have any other suggestions.
13. Great Banded Grayling
Sadly, the only species of Grayling I saw all week and, unlike last year in the Massif Central when I saw multi-hundreds, they were very few in number here (maybe it's early in the flight season). I saw just one in the first 5 days, two on the 6th day and three on the 7th day, including this one which, unusually for this species, chose to rest on a leaf rather than either a tree trunk or the ground:
14. Sloe Hairstreak
Appalling photo...but then it was just a record shot as I felt confident I'd see many more (this species was practically approaching plague proportions in the Massif central last year).
Wrong. This was the only one I saw all week. Moral of the story.....?
British species
Skippers all over the place...Large, Small, Essex and even two very faded Dingies. No Lulworths though, perhaps because the rock is neither chalk nor limestone. Wood Whites seem to be quite common, and not necessarily in woodland. There were a few flying up and down the open areas of the site I visited. Common Blues fairly numerous, with Small Heaths not far behind. Also seen Red Admiral, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Copper, Brimstone, Wall, Speckled Wood, White Admiral, Brown Argus, Silver Washed Fritillary plus a female Holly Blue in the hotel garden!
Daily Miscellany
I overheard the word
canicule this evening. This is French for 'heatwave', and when I asked about it I was told to expect one immediately!! Apparently, like in the UK, spring and early summer has been appalling in this part of the world and just over a week ago it was still hovering around the 15/16c mark and wet to boot!
A British heatwave is usually anything mid-seventies and above. This southern French one threatens to break the one hundred barrier and it arrives tomorrow.