Plazac is a small but beautiful, medieval village in the Périgord noir in the south-west of the Dordogne; at its centre is an imposing church above a grid of narrow streets below. Plazac sits just to the north of the Vézère Valley with its pretty riverside towns such as Montignac, Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère and Les Eyzies. To…
Tag: Dordogne
A Scarce Large Blue Day
12th August 2017 The weather is calm, cloudy and warm at Les Tourbières de Vendoire; a good day for looking for the scarce large blue Phengaris teleius butterfly, a species now restricted to only a handful of locations in western France. The French name l’azuré de la sanguisorbe is more fitting as the food plant of the freshly emerged caterpillar…
Le Plateau d’Argentine
The small village of Argentine, so small it is now linked with nearby Rochebeaucourt as La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine, sits peacefully at one end of a long limestone plateau above the river Nizonne looking over the rolling hills of the Charente to the west. The plateau is a great grey whaleback with ancient, wooded Argentine at its head, an open…
La Forêt de la Double
Looking to the south of Saint-Aulaye beyond the River Dronne, the land is endless lines of long, forested ridges where hen harrier, honey buzzard and hobby are all found within the planted pines and clearfells. In late August, the Double Forest is quiet and no raptors are in the sky to help give their nest…