25th May 2022 The steep limestone grassland above the village has provided endless riches, a fleeting Apollo perhaps the pick of the many butterflies but there was also an array of orchids and other vibrant flowers on this large patch of pelouse calcaire. With the advent of spiked speedwell it is not surprising to find…
Tag: Ophrys orchids
Denge Woods: The Warren
The Warren is cleared of scrub with a handful of retained trees, and encompassed by ancient beech, oak and sweet chestnut woodland. There is a diverse carpet of primrose, vetches, trefoils, salad burnet, speedwells and orchids, adorned with day-flying moths and butterflies; duke of burgundy fritillaries, dingy skippers, green hairstreaks, brimstones, red admirals and burnet…
Below Kastania
This side of the Mani peninsula is a narrow belt of land between mountains and sea, untamed where the slopes are too steep to create terraces. The narrow road between the hill villages of Kastania and Saidona runs along narrow ridge through rocky maquis where swathes of pink and white cistus are flowering as well…
Early April on the Mani
There are days of blue sky and cool winds and others where the land is drenched by great thunderstorms or smothered by blankets of grey cloud that creep over the mountains to slowly suffocate the coast. The sea is often blue glass and sunsets a simple wash of orange; under grey skies there is often…
Le Pech Bely in late May
The land is dry, the barley fields are high and field margins and fallows full of colourful plants. The vines are putting on their light green leaf. A distant woodlark sings its fluting song in the cloudless dawn, later joined by a weeping tree pipit, wheezing black redstart and the dull rattle of a cirl…
Le Pech Bely Encore
The April weather this year is sharp showers and brisk winds then warm sun and clear light. Dawn drowns in deep dew. The dead vines are pruned and tied and the rows harrowed. The first trees are coming into leaf led by Montpellier maple Acer monspessulanum, bright green with yellow flowers. The old devils are all present: corn bunting Emberiza calandra on…
Le Pech Bely, Montaigu-de-Quercy
Spring: 22nd April – 1st May 2013. The small road from the ancient, bastide town of Tournon d’Agenais runs along the valley of the river Boudouyssou, a small tributary of the Lot. Above the river, on a small plateau accessed by a narrow spur road, sits the hamlet of Pech Bely; nothing much more than a…