Sharing lunch with a swallowtail

We've just shared our lunch terrace with the first of this year's swallowtail butterflies, who's spent the best part of the last hour snacking on the nectar from the dianthus in the flower bed around the edge (in fact I think he's - she's? - still there).

Although swallowtails are not uncommon here, and you'll almost certainly see at least one if you're here, it's still a Big Event for us. In the UK, swallowtails are now confined to very small areas of Norfolk, the county where we used to live, and we like lots of others used to make annual pilgrimages to those places - sometimes just a few metres square - where they could be seen. So to have one casually join us for lunch is a huge thrill ...

I was a bit confused by this one when I first saw it, because its markings seemed to be rather different from those I'd seen before. But my learned guide book told me that there's a distinct difference between the first brood, which flies round about now, and the second, which flies from July to August or September: the purply-blue markings are a lot less evident, the red spots almost non-existent, and the yellow and black of the wings are much more pronounced.

I wish I could say that these photos were mine, but I haven't yet found a way to persuade them (the swallowtails, that is, not the photos) to stop fluttering long enough and pose nicely for the camera. So thanks to the RSPB and to this site, which so often comes up trumps with some lovely pics!

Après le déluge ...

... les papillons.

Two days after my last post, the sun came out. Incontrovertible proof that anti-cyclones not only can read, but read this blog. (Delusions? Moi?).

And with the sun came literally hundreds of butterflies, all making a - um - bee-line for the big buddleia bush next to our top terrace. I've never before seen so many in the same place at the same time. We have several buddleia bushes, some wild, some planted, and all attract scores of butterflies when the flowers are out; what we're seeing at the moment though is a first. (I wish I could take a decent photo but all you get to see are flying blobs ...). Scarce swallowtails, commas, painted ladies, peacocks, red admirals, white admirals, southern white admirals, tortoiseshells, small coppers, swallowtails, several different fritillaries, marbled whites, purple emperors, ringlets, various blues, large whites, small whites, plus a few unidentified little brown jobs are all jostling for position through most of the day. Wonderful.

And reason number 687 for planning a trip to Grillou next summer ..... :-)

Gotcha!

I've finally managed to identify one of the fritillaries. This one's become addicted to the window sill in the dining-room-to-be, where he (and it is a he - the stripe-y things on the upperside of his wings gives it away) sits out most of the day, in the midst of the plaster dust and lime and general grunge. Every evening he has to be persuaded to leave; every lunchtime he's back (what do butterflies do in the mornings, I wonder?). Here he is (please ignore the dust. It'll be gone by the time you get here, honest):

He's a Silver Washed Fritillary. Pretty, huh?

Butterflies and other animals

In true capricious 2010 fashion, the weather has this week finally caught up with the fact that it's summer and has been teetering on the brink of a full-blown canicule, with shade temperatures hitting the upper thirties and staying there until well after dark. Maybe not the best for heavy outside work, but pretty nice nevertheless (and there's always a worthy substitute, like lounging around on a sun bed with a book. Oh, all right then - like getting on with the inside work ...). The loveliest thing about it though has been the absolute explosion in the butterfly population that we've seen over the last few days.

Ariège is well known for its butterflies, and living here, up at 500 metres in the woods, we seem to get more than our fair share. To be honest, I wish I was better at identifying them - I know of people who are perfectly well able to point at something 50 metres away and name it as a Small Pink-Spotted One-Legged Maui Dancer Thrice Removed, but I'm not (yet) one of them. Having said that, I've got to know the more common (in Ariège terms, that is) ones over the last couple of years. What follows is a quick-and-dirty list of the ones I've seen flying around Grillou over the last 48 hours, partly so that I can show off my new found skills, but mostly so that (shameless plug number 73/10) you can see just how rich nature is here in our little woodland clearing:

Scarce Swallowtail, Swallowtail, Marbled White, Clouded Yellow, Purple Emperor, Common Blue, Purple Hairstreak, Holly Blue, Brown Argus, Red Admiral, White Admiral, various Ringlets, various Fritillaries, various Skippers, Peacock, Black-Veined White, Small White, Large White, Orange Tip, Brimstone, Cleopatra, Wood White, Small Copper, Common Blue, Chalk Hill Blue, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Large Tortoiseshell, various Graylings ... plus various others so far unidentifiable.

This is the Scarce Swallowtail, one of my favourites:

And this: not a butterfly, and not a hummingbird (though it sounds like one) ...



It's a Humming Bird Hawk Moth, with the coolest proboscis on the planet.

And while I'm at it, I can't resist this picture of the only bird I know that speaks its name: the upupa epops (hoopoe). This one has taken up residence just down our track, from where it spends its day yelling 'oop-oop-oop' (or 'poo-poo-poo' as my French bird book would have it) at anyone who'll listen ... and it's hard not to. Just recently it's taken to walking in front of my car as I come home from work, and after we've travelled the requisite 100 metres together it always flies up to the same branch to let me pass ...

Aren't they just ridiculously wonderful?

Spring cleaning

The last couple of weeks have been almost outrageously hot. "Sun bed! Book! Beer! Swim!" demands my still-Anglo-Saxon body. It may learn, one day, that what we used to call a heatwave in England is perfectly normal weather here, and doesn't mean that it's on holiday (though I confess that I did succumb to the sunbed for a couple of hours this afternoon).

I don't know what the spring equivalent of an Indian summer is, but that's what we're having and jolly nice it is too. We haven't seen a cloud for many days, and the clarity of the blue spring light lasts all day and just takes the breath away. The sight of Mont Valier through the trees, still deeply snow covered against the blue sky, is nothing short of awesome. Everything is growing at an unbelievable rate: where a week ago was bare earth, we now have five yellow tulips, perfectly in flower, and the onion plants I planted out last weekend have grown several centimetres. Azaleas are in flower all over the garden. Blossom is ready to burst. The birds are as noisy as on a May morning - save, that is, the blackbird who has chosen our land as his territory, who I'm beginning to think has a speech impediment. Yesterday we heard, and then saw, a Great Spotted Cuckoo fly over the house - a new bird for us both, and a bit of a rarity here. 

Ad we've been spring cleaning. It never ceases to amaze me just how much work it takes to keep Grillou's garden looking natural and semi-wild. There are times when I think it must be easier to have one of those dreadful English style gardens with flat lawn and flower beds, and indeed I occasionally yearn for one - usually after several hours of bramble or ivy-and-moss removal, and admittedly for just three seconds at a time, after which the real me returns. 

Tomorrow, at precisely 12.43 French time, is the Spring Equinox - the day when the sun moves across the celestial equator, rising exactly in the east and setting exactly in the west. It's the true first day of spring; the day when the winter darkness gives way to warmth and new light. Celebrated in almost all traditional cultures, it's yet another seasonal landmark that many of us today have lost touch with. But it's a day to celebrate new growth, new ideas, new enthusiasms, and the beginnings of new projects. 

Me? I'll be on a plane, headed for north-east England; I'm spending a week on an intensive tiling training course, leaving John to carry on the spring cleaning here. I'm a reasonable tiler; being the insufferable perfectionist that I am I can make a pretty good job of a simple floor or wall. But this is Grillou, which doesn't do simple. And with nearly 200 square metres of tiling to be done over the next few months, it's clear that a little more theory and technical know-how won't go amiss if the finished product is going to look as good as it should. Having searched high and low for training in France without success (artisans here tend to learn over years as apprentices, or via a 3 year BAC professionel), there was only one option - a week in England, notably in South Shields, home to one of the three most highly rated professional courses. 

To tell the truth, I'm a bit daunted. Not at the idea of the course, though it'll be interesting being the token woman (!), but at leaving our lovely plants and birds and butterflies and blossom and mountains and most of all our silence for a week in the land of traffic and concrete. I didn't quite realise until this evening, when I took a last walk around the garden, how incredibly attached I've become to Grillou in just two years. I'll miss friends, the simplicity of life here, the Pyrénées, and of course the weather. But hey, there are compensations. South Shields is the curry capital of the north-east ...

See you all in a bit over a week!

Yellow

Today was - well, just so gloriously yellow:

These were out in force ...



And these ...



And this ...



He was singing his heart out all day ...



... while he (she?) and dozens like him (her? How do you tell?) flew in every direction ...



The first of these appeared ...



... and the sun shone, though I couldn't get a picture of that. But it was still 33 degrees Celsius in the sun at 5pm ...