Graham Hart has lived in Ariege since May 1998 and has known the area since 1991.He has a life-long interest in natural history, which started with butterflies and birds and now includes other insects (especially moths) and flowers. He leads butterfly watching holidays in the region and is writing a book on the butterflies of Ariège. When not out chasing butterflies Graham works as a vet in Ax-les-Thermes.
The weather has continued to be quite mixed but with several very warm spells so all the wildlife has taken advantage of this. It has been interesting to see the speed of recovery after the summer drought.
BUTTERFLIES
Lots of Blues flying especially in the first half of the month. Long Tailed and Langs Short Tailed Blues were both well in evidence and I also found some Silver Studded Blues, very unusual for October. In the middle of the month there was either an influx or a local emergance of Bath Whites, I had seen a few earlier in the summer giving the possibility of local emergance. However at the same time there were a lot of easterly winds which might have brought the butterflies from the Mediterranean area. Backing up this second possibility was for me the event of the year. I was walking the dog through LES CABANNES where I live when suddenly I noticed a large butterfly flying across my path at about 4 metres high. It flew virtually overhead giving me a very clear view of its outline and the underside coloration. It gave a generally dark impression and it had tails……..unmistakably a Two Tailed Pacha!! My first ever and the first ever! There have been only a handful of sightings of this impressive species in the Ariege, they were all in the easternmost part of Ariège behind the mountains.
Throughout the month Small Coppers were seen popping up all over the place and Tim Nash reported Sooty Coppers as well in his area (Couserans). Painted Ladies were still to be found, though in much reduced numbers. They continued to be seen after the first frosts, which is rather strange since the books state that they cannot tolerate temperatures under 5°C. This leaves two possibilities for the butterflies that have been seen: either they are new migrants from Spain where the temperatures are warmer or the butterflies have been finding shelter from the low temperatures. Tim Nash has noticed a Painted Lady sunning itself on a dry stone wall; these walls warm up very quickly if they are south facing and they retain the heat well over night. So are these walls used by the Painted Ladies to shelter from the cold temperatures at night?
There was again an absence of sightings of Camberwell Beauties and Large Tortoishells but the other butterflies that overwinter as adults were all seen: Small Tortoishell, Peacock, Comma, Red Admiral and Brimstone. Other species seen were Small Heath, Speckled Wood, Wall Brown, Clouded Yellow, Bergers Clouded Yellow, Large White, Small White, Common Blue, Adonis Blue, Oberthurs Grizzled Skipper.
Humming Bird Hawk Moths were still abundant at the beginning of the month and we found at least three in our garage, presumably looking for suitable places to hibernate. We found two more Convolvulus Hawk Moth caterpillars, on the brown morph and the other the green one which was interesting.
FLOWERS
During the first half of the month the true autumn Crocus (not the Autumn Crocus Colchicum) was flowering all over the place. Some fields were purple with them but unfortunately untimely downpours of rain cut short their flowering. The Hawksbits, Knapweeds and Scabiouses continued to flower right to the end of the month and beyond.
The leaves (and all the figs!) have fallen from the fig tree and the autumn colours of the trees are fabulous, quite a lot of leaves had started to fall by the end of the month and the walnut trees kept on dropping nuts until late in the month.
BIRDS
I spotted a migrating Pied Fly Catcher in the middle of the month, just one, usually I spot several over a few days as they go through. The most unusual sighing was of a Stork. It moved into the area around mid September, walking around a camp site scavenging what it could from the campers. It just stayed…..and stayed…….and stayed. One day I was eating lunch at Tarascon and I just could not believe my eyes, about a three second glimpse of a stork flying between the rooftops. Then two days later it was on the top of a small bungalow, just standing standing there. This time I was in the car so I stopped and got a very good look. The Stork spend a lot of time in a field next to the bungalow. The sward in the field was quite long and I am certain full of insects such as grasshoppers on which the stork could feed. It seems this bird is a bit confused--it is only a migrant here so why it suddenly stopped and stayed here is a mystery. It can fly, it has changed position by more than three kilometres. Perhaps it was injured and is recuperating, perhaps it is too weak to continue its migration despite being able to fly for a kilometre or two.
The other notable thing in October was the number of Dippers on the local river. I was able to count up to five at a time. They are all along the river, presumably the birds from higher up in the mountains descend here to pass the winter. They are interesting to watch, doing their bobbing little jig on the rocks, and belying their name, they not only dip in and out of the water, they dive under and come up five or ten metres further down stream. They float there, very low in the water then they dive again and so it goes on. They do this for maybe 100m then fly back upstream again to where they started and do it all over again, making them more divers than dippers!!