Category Archives: Natural History

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Tourbières de Vendoire and Plateau d’Argentine (24 July 2014)

11 August 2014 Ian Alexander

There were Dryad butterflies all over beside the paths on the fen peat of the Tourbières, the old peat workings (the French word Tourbe is cognate with our ‘turf’, a block of peat for the fire).

Turtle Doves cooed peacefully as we arrived, and continued the whole time.

Vendoire is one of the best wet meadow areas in all of Aquitaine, with its shallow fen pools and alkaline peat making it a wonderful place for dragonflies. Today, there were Keeled Skimmers all over, making local dashes low over the water; Blacktailed Skimmers here and there, dashing about widely; a pair of Emperors; Scarlet Darters fiercely territorial; White-legged damselflies; Common Bluetail damselflies; Banded Demoiselles; some Small Pincertails on the chalky entrance path.

Marsh Frogs, Rana ridibunda, lived up to their Latin name (‘laughing frog’) with hilarious, loud laughing song (“what’s that bird?”) during our picnic. Around the peat-ponds are woods and Carr of Ash, Alder, Willow, Sallow, Alder Buckthorn, and wet meadow with long grass rich in flowers.

A single Hobby came overhead, its slender Swift-like wings scything, presumably hawking for dragonflies. A Rose Chafer whirred heavily into the air from the scented Meadowsweet and Purple Loosestrife.

Purple Loosestrife at Tourbieres de Vendoire

Among the butterflies, Large Skipper, Dryad, Gatekeeper, Mallow Skipper, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Common Blue, Holly Blue. The attractive and common micro-moth Pyrausta purpuralis too.

Pyrausta purpuralis, a handsome micro-moth in the Pyralid family

Mallow Skipper, a rewarding insect to find

Plateau d’Argentine

One of the delights of France is that species like Glanville Fritillary, almost gone from Britain, are still fairly common

This wonderful reserve, if such it is – it’s still used to launch aircraft, not military any more but hang-gliders – is a flat bare plateau of hard limestone, topped with dry calcareous grassland and scrubby trees, rich in flowers like Viper’s Bugloss, Horseshoe Vetch, Knapweed, Autumn Squill, Eyebright and Devilsbit Scabious, as well as Orchids in springtime, and alive with butterflies. The temperature reached 33 degrees on this sunny afternoon, the Common Blue and Glanville Fritillary butterflies seemingly unaffected by the heat.

Common Blue on Autumn Squill at Plateau d'Argentine — Common Blue on Autumn Squill, a delicate-looking blue flower of calcareous grassland at Plateau d’Argentine

Back at base, a hairy black-and-red striped beetle, Trichodes alvearius visited the Fennel, remaining wary of approach. The very large, black-and-yellow-legged Sand Wasp did the same; it’s tricky to observe as its eyesight is so good.

Natural History

Dordogne: Inhabitants of this house (23 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

Humans are the most obvious inhabitants, but definitely not the most numerous. The others include:

House Mice (frequently, in loft and whenever food is provided in the kitchen)

Stone Martens (occasionally, in the loft)

Potter and Mason Wasps (making nest pots in the walls)

Wall Lizards (visible any warm day)

Spiders, the ones with very long thin legs, that shake their bodies to warn off predators (we chase them out but there are always more)

Woodworm (never quite eliminated, despite best efforts)

Hornets (just a few, trying to nest in a hole much too small for a proper Hornets’ Nest, unless they’ve found a way right through into the loft, let’s hope not).

Common wasps, too, much as above.

Black Redstarts (well, they stalk the roofline at dusk, as owners of the place; they nest in a hedge nearby)

Meal moths (still living on 50-year-old cereal dust remaining from when the house was a working farm)

Today a White Admiral, a Brimstone female, and a Silver-Washed Fritillary paid visits.

Natural History

Dordogne: Betony (22 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

Betony, Stachys officinalis, is as its ‘official’ specific name indicates, a medicinal herb used, without scientific proof, “to treat anxiety, gallstones, heartburn, high blood pressure, migraine and neuralgia, and to prevent sweating. It can also be used as an ointment for cuts and sores” (according to Wikipedia). It is widespread across Europe, but unobtrusive, though its handsomely crenellated leaves with their long stalks, and the largish flower with a tube longer than the calyx, make it a rewarding find. Once you know it, you’ll see it everywhere.

Lower leaf of Betony: the stalk is longer than the leaf-blade, and the basal leaves form a persistent rosette.

Natural History

Dordogne: Thunderstorms and Parachutes (20 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

The day dawned bright but unsettled after a stormy night that brought down many small branches, with the news that an outdoor concert in the local market town was disrupted by lightning, sending several people to hospital. One may imagine that once a paid-for concert is under way, a few rumbles of thunder and a little rain do not necessarily cause instant abandonment of the event: a direct hit is of course another matter.

I made use of the cool weather to cut a low branch from the Yew tree, giving shady space to walk and sit on the lawn. The Yew is next to a (very good) Fig, but the two could not be more different. The Fig rapidly sends out a cluster of long flexible shoots that quickly flop over and block the way; they are soft but brittle, and are easily sliced off. In a hard winter, all the above-ground parts of the tree died back, but it soon shot up again; none of the branches are specially long-lived, even the thickest of them. The Yew grows around a single vertical axis, where the seedling grew half a century ago. It is still, as Yews go, a young tree: some live a thousand years or more. The wood is tinged with a rich deep winy red, and is hard, tough, and springy. It was the perfect choice for making longbows: durable, water-resistant, practically impossible to break. Sawing through it is a challenge. Below the cut branch, I saw after felling it, was a little clump of Collared Parachute mushrooms, which Sterry and Hughes record as ‘very rarely under conifers’. I suppose Yew is not a typical conifer.

Collared Parachute mushroom, Marasmius rotula, showing off its elegant ‘parachute’, collar, and wheel effect (Latin rotula = little wheel). The stem is perhaps a millimetre thick, but quite strong and flexible.

I carted the cut pieces to the compost heap. The trees began to rustle and shake, the sky darkened abruptly, thunder rumbled and the rain lashed down again. Parachuting to safety seemed an appropriate metaphor.

Natural History

Dordogne: Sunflowers above the riding-stables (17 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

The riding stables swarmed with young Swallows, perhaps 15 of them growing strong for the flight down to Africa, twittering, swooping, perching on lofty cables.

On the hill, maize and sunflowers grew in glorious profusion, the bees drunk on nectar and coated with yellow pollen.

Along the chalk path, Common Blue butterflies skipped and perched on chicory flowers, delicate blue. In the bushy hedge, masses of darkly glossy plums blooming with pale blue yeast dangled from the trees. Above, a Stonechat rasped out his scraping call. I picked up two stones and made the exact same call by scratching them together, as if lighting a stony match: scritch, scratch. House Sparrows cheeped from the bushes; more anxiously, a yellowish leaf warbler, probably a Melodious Warbler, churred continually and flew about semi-conspicuously to perch repeatedly in the long grass to distract me from its nest – its young continually piping from deep in the hedge. I retreated gracefully.

A Turtle Dove cooed softly from high on a power line. At the stables, a Scarce Swallowtail (actually reasonably common here) drifted past; a White Wagtail hawked for flies beside the manège.

At 4pm the temperature reached 34.5 degrees: such a heatwave is called the Canicule or Dog Days, as Sirius, the Dog Star, is high in the midnight sky at this time of year.

Natural History

Dordogne – Parasitic Wasp, Fiery Clearwing (16 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

Parasitic Wasp on Fennel — Parasitic Wasp taking nectar from Fennel

When you see a parasitic wasp, she – it’s always a she, as the males lack the long ‘sting’, which is an ovipositor – is generally flying about searching for caterpillars or other insect larvae. She can detect them deep inside plant stems, drills down to them with her extraordinary sting, and lays one egg in the body of the luckless grub.

Another fantastic insect: Fiery Clearwing moth

Clearwing moth larvae just eat plants, including currants, but the adults are spectacular. The clear patches on the wings are where the wing scales are programmed to fall off, leaving a bare membrane. Happily the wings and tail are gloriously coloured.

Proof that Bee-Flies cheat: those legs are resting on those flowers, however much those buzzing wings are hovering!

And to cap it all, a large, brilliant Green Lizard ran into the kitchen.

In the afternoon the temperature reached 31 degrees. We boldly went out onto the steep Chalk grassland hillside north of St Sulpice, where the Pyramidal and Chalk Fragrant Orchids flower in quantities in the springtime.

Praying Mantis on a steep chalk hillside

At least five Praying Mantises on the chalk grassland: they are widely distributed on flowery meadows (chalk or sandy clay doesn’t seem to matter) but appear never to be numerous, so this was a good haul.

Attractive blue figwort on chalk — Attractive blue figwort (?) on chalk

Zygaena fausta on knapweed — Zygaena fausta on Knapweed

Zygaena fausta, a boldly marked and presumably aposematic Burnet Moth without any English name that I know of (we could call it the Devil’s Burnet), on Knapweed.

The sound of summer: a chorus of grasshoppers and crickets in the heat. This grasshopper was unusually large and obliging.

Handsome blue Scabious — Handsome deep blue Scabious

The chalk was thinly carpeted by this white starflower

The hillside was carpeted thinly and gracefully by these slender white flowers; behind it are Juniper bushes and loose Chalk scree, a scene repeated all across the hill, interspersed with bright flowers (Milkwort, Scabious, Knapweed, as well as Eryngo and various yellow composites) and the dried-out fruiting stalks of Orchids of different species.

A brilliantly-coloured bug on a grass stem. Perhaps it is an early instar of the Sloe Bug, or a similar species.

At 11 pm, our headlights revealed a Roe hind and fawn on the grassy track. The hind looked at the car and decided reluctantly to move off to the right, into the long grass of the meadow. The fawn ran away down the track before branching off to the left, its usual haunt with the cover at woodland edge where it hides up during the day.

A pair of slim, brightly striped orange-yellow and black Hoverflies mating ... on a car door — A pair of slim, brightly striped orange-yellow and black Hoverflies with chocolate-brown eyes, mating … on a car door

This large, long-waisted and rather dark wasp is quite a shy visitor to the Fennel. She buzzes noisily into cracks in the wall, and just this once (hence the fuzzy photo) I caught her carrying a lump of mud to do her building, so I assume she’s a Mason Wasp, species not known to me (help welcomed). She is about 20 mm long and stocks her mud nests with luckless grubs to feed her own larvae. There is a similar wasp of the same size and shape with yellow legs: not clear if this is a colour variant or another species.

Natural History

Dordogne – Amanita mairei (15 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

In the moonlight, two Nightjars churr vigorously, competitively, their odd sewing-machine song continuing for minutes at a time, ending with a few chucks and wing-claps.

In the morning, a Golden Oriole squawks and mews strangely from the woods.

Lords and Ladies in fruit — Lords and Ladies (Wild Arum) in fruit

Amanita mairei is an unusual Amanitopsis (Grisette) section toadstool in the mainly poisonous Amanita genus. This one is found in mixed open woodland on sandy soil, exactly the case here, and a beautiful example of just how specialized our fungi are. How do 3,500 species of mushroom and toadstool share a continent? By specializing in different habitats, living with different plants. The volva, here partly eaten by slugs, is a whitish bag at the base, often buried in the soil. The stem is slightly fleecy, the cap convex and without an umbo, the little point often found in the middle.

Under the hot sun, I plant some more lavender, and some ornamental Sage (Salvia superba) plants. They are soon visited by Large Skippers, bumblebees, a Hummingbird Hawkmoth.

On the way home down a quiet country lane, we stopped the car for a Hoopoe. It wandered unconcernedly along the road for some minutes, eventually flapping away with its distinctive ‘butterfly’ flight to a telegraph wire. A Kestrel landed on the same telegraph wire nearby, then hovered over some long grass.

At 7pm, a very large Violet Ground Beetle, Carabus violaceus, about 30mm long, splendidly iridescent with a blue-black gloss, clambered up the wall of the house.

A Blackcap treated us to late-season bursts of musical song, brief but fluty. A Great Green Bush-Cricket fluttered a foot over the lawn, legs trailing like a wading bird’s, its four wings beating hard to keep its long body airborne. And a Wall Butterfly visited what I’ll have to call the Butterfly Flowerbed with its mix of flowering lavenders and thyme.

Natural History

Dordogne – Passenger Moth, Tree Frog (14 July 2014)

10 August 2014 Ian Alexander

I disturbed a Passenger Moth while digging. This Noctuid moth’s pattern is reminiscent of the Meal Moth, a micro. The weather is as cool as Scotland: 14 or 15 degrees, ideal for working. Tomorrow is predicted to get to 30 degrees, at last.

A large green European Tree-Frog was roosting high on a door.

A good-sized picture-winged fly with a yellow head landed on my arm, seemingly trying to bite.

Natural History