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 was good up to November 12th when we had two days of snow !! Which put an abrupt end to the butterflies. After that the weather was fairly seasonal, cold, mixed cloudy days with a few good ones.
BUTTERFLIES
At the beginning of November there were quite a few butterflies still on the wing; Common Blues and Small Coppers were frequent if not abundant. Also frequent were Clouded Yellow, Wall Brown and Speckled Wood. Other species seen were Small Heath, Small White, Bergers Clouded Yellow, Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral Comma and one very ragged Violet Fritillary. I was lucky enough to see a female Clouded Yellow laying eggs on tiny Medic plants by the side of a track on day. She picked very small plants that were growing amongst gravel at the track edge. It seemed to me that this would provide a nice warm microclimate for the quick development of the caterpillar. Then after the snow everything went very quiet until some sunny days in December when five species of butterfly were seen, Clouded Yellow, Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral as to be expected, but also one Wall Brown and quite a few Speckled Wood, which must have hatched out after the bad weather in mid November.
So the season started slowly with the bad spring weather, but then continued well right up to mid November. The highlights for me were of course the week’s holiday that I did with the group from the Upper Thames branch of Butterfly Conservation when we found 131 species of butterfly and during that week we found new sites for the Woodland Brown and Mountain Alcon or Rebeli’s Large Blue.
Next year I should be moving into my new “Eco” house where I will have a lot more space and hope to be able to use the moth trap occasionally to see what flies in the Aston Valley. I know already that Marsh Fritillary and Clouded Apollo both fly in some meadows surrounded by woodland less than two kilometres away. I shall be checking up on that site regularly next year.
FLOWERS
This is a very dormant time for flora, the Stinking Hellebore being one of the exceptions with its new flower buds slowly developing. Some flowers were still valiantly pushing up their last flowers at the beginning of the period, there were some Knapweeds and Hawksbits and some lovely little cushions of the yellow/orange flowers of Brids Foot Trefoil. I also spotted a few speedwells still in flower in sunny sheltered positions, they seem to be some of the first things to flower in spring and the last in autumn, only being stopped by the worst of the mid winter weather, even then they survived under the snow in mid November to be flowering still after the snow had melted, apparently non the worse for wear.
BIRDS
The large raptors that over winter here are to be spotted quite regularly if one waits and watches patiently. They are actively constructing or refurbishing nest sites ready for egg laying in February. All the known pairs of Lammergeiers have been spotted in their expected haunts, so every body is keeping their fingers crossed for a good breeding season. Robins are less in evidence this year and I cannot say that there is one species in particular which stands out as being exceptionally abundant this year.