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 finally broken, with some very wet, most welcome days after the intense heat and dryness of the summer. On sunny days there is still plenty of wildlife about, loads of butterflies. The plants have recovered amazingly rapidly and there are a lot of flowers about for the late butterflies. Fields that were completely brown just two weeks earlier are now green with a very vigorous re-growth of plants seemingly determined to make up for lost time. The wetter weather has also brought out an enormous number of toadstools, the woods of the mountains are full of people searching for the highly prized Ceps (Boletus edibilis is I believe its Latin name) we have found a good spot for field mushrooms not far from home.
BUTTERFLIES
As soon as the sun shines and the temperature goes up there are a good many about. Adonis Blues are in good numbers and there is a new emergence of Silver Studded Blues at one site. Small Coppers are very frequent, turning up all over the place, I have had several sightings in the garden. Also in the garden I spotted a Langs Short Tailed Blue, a migrant that is seen occasionally towards the end of the summer. I have seen one Bath White flitting its way laizily along and lots of Large and Small Whites which are usually abundant at this time of year.
We have had several species of butterfly feeding on the figs in the garden, mostly Red Admirals but a few Peacocks, Commas and Small Tortoishells and the occasional Speckled Wood. Conspicuous by its absence on the figs this year is the Camberwell Beauty, perhaps it went into a very early hibernation with the drought.
The very good summer has I am sure led to extra generations of a number of butterflies including the Peacock. I was amazed to find a nest of newly hatched Nymphalid caterpillars on some stinging nettles at the end of the garden during the last week of September. Small Tortoishells I thought to myself, but as I watched them grow and change their skins it became evident that they were in fact Peacocks, certainly at least a second generation, something which is well known down here, perhaps even a third generation, who knows. I just know that it is giving me and my family great enjoyment just watching them grow up.
We have had some other surprise caterpillars in the garden. Bryony my youngest walked in with a Colvolvulus Hawk Moth caterpillar on her hand in late September. It was fully grown and was wandering about trying to find somewhere to burrow into the ground and turn into a chrysalis. She was very proud taking it to school and showing all her friends. Three days later my other daughter found another one. So now we have two that have burrowed down into the deep layer of earth I put at the bottom of two breeding cages.
FLOWERS
As I said above, the plants have very quickly recovered after the drought, some grasses are even flowering again, something that I have never seen before. Hawkweeds and Knapweeds are again in flower, the speed of their recovery and growth has been amazing. The farmers are very happy because suddenly from having nothing to give their animals to eat except the hay for the winter, they have lots to give them and plenty spare for another cut for hay to make up for what they used in the drought. The Autumn Crocus, Colchicum, not the very similar true Crocus that flowers in autumn is everywhere, and at the end of the month the other species was starting to flower. To tell them apart you have to look closely at the stamens and anthers and the inside surface of the petals; in the Colchicum there is a thin white line extending from the base to about one third of the way up the petal, this is absent in the real crocus. There is lots of fruit and nuts on the trees, I have collected the first of the Walnuts, and every day I eat a few figs from the garden whilst watching the butterflies and other insects feast on ripe figs above my reach.
BIRDS
The highlight this month for me was whilst walking the dog one lunchtime I came across a family of Fire Crests, I had my new binoculars with me and was keen to try them out and was well rewarded. Firstly I had to differentiate Fire from Gold Crest. This is done by looking to see if there is a well defined black eye stripe with a white line above. This I was able to do quite quickly, as soon as I got a good view with the bird staying in place for several seconds so that I could clearly observe the features. The first two or three sightings were of young or the female, they were clearly Fire Crests but the crest was not very obvious. Then suddenly another bird hopped into view, the colours were very clearly marked and the crest was quite wide and of a brilliant orange. He stayed pecking around on a branch for about thirty seconds allowing me to observe every detail of his lovely plumage before flying off a few metres into the next tree.