4th July, 2025 The rolling hills around Boisjarzeau are bleached after a months of incessant sun; the wheat has been cut early and much of the maize and sunflowers are looking small and underwatered. The irrigation where applied appears futile. The gardens are barely coping too; and yet the wet ditch in the marshy field…
Tag: South Charente
The South Charente in Late June
Under thundery skies, the herbaceous borders at Boisjarzeau are at their colourful best. The wet spring this year has saved on the watering but the garden meadows are unusually thick with false oat-grass and barren brome with little space for wildflowers. A sward full of yellow rattle would impede the grasses and promote floral diversity…
Catching up with old friends in the South Charente
A few days in the South Charente at Boisjarzeau in late July provided the opportunity to catch up with some good friends. This included the large coppers in the small, damp meadow beyond the lake seen for the first time in 2018 and not found in 2020. Thankfully, a single female was on the water…
The earth
Morning light mellows, cold mist flattens the hilltops. Fields of sunflowers the colours of the earth; a farmhouse built of white stone with rufous clay tiles and sea green shutters that are shut. Late evening light picks out a silver tractor harrowing a fallow field. The day closes on a closing day and the land…
La Vallée de la Tude
A long section of the river Tude around Chalais in the South Charente is specially protected for its range of wetland habitats and associated species. The introduction to the detailed protected area document describes a small, lowland river and its tributaries in an area of mixed farming: Le site Natura 2000 « Vallée de la Tude »…
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…
Summer days at Boisjarzeau
The heat of the past few days brings dark thunderstorms that travel up from the south over the wooded hills to the west, then switch direction, run up the Vallée de la Tude, and deluge the ground. The humidity immediately drops and the cool, clear air is cleaned of pollen and dust. The fields of cereals and young…