The French Pyrenees

A bit different this time having just come back from a week in the French Pyrenees. It was my first visit there and what a superb place! Stunning landscapes, great range of plants, butterflies and birds, lovely food and a really nice ‘vibe’ to the way of life…

Cirque de Gavarnie (1400ft high waterfall!)

Ossoue Valley

Col de Tentes

Birds included daily sightings of Lammergeier, Golden Eagle and both Choughs. We saw three species of vulture, Short-toed Eagle and Honey Buzzard from our bedroom window.

Snow finch

Water pipit

Rock Thrush

I also tallied up over 40 species of butterfly (despite the late spring)

Swallowtail

Southern White Admiral

False Heath Fritillary

Large Wall

And a handful of day flying months including this striking alpine species Psodos quadrifaria…

As well as other insects including the superb Sulphur Owlfly…

Marmots of course…

And a few reptiles…

Western Green Lizard

Apart from the mountain peaks perhaps the most striking features of the landscape were traditionally managed meadows and road verges brimming with wild flowers

Horned Pansy

Vanilla Orchid

As well as Pyrenean and high mountain specialities...

Pyrenean Saxifrage

Ramonda

 Alpine Gentians

Alpine Snowbells

Alpine Buttercups

All in all an amazing week.

4th June 2023

This blog mainly reflects the pleasure of being interested in nature, but when you care about something then you feel it when it’s damaged. This spring has been the worst I can remember.

I went for a six mile walk around the village last week, in good weather, and I managed a total of two bumblebees and two hoverflies. Bird numbers are hugely down too with hardly any swifts and very low numbers of hirundines (I have so far only found a single House Martin nest!). Resident birds too don’t seem to be faring well with, for example, only three singing Corn Buntings (against a typical count of 7-8)…

It’s an intensively farmed area so I don’t expect Amazonian levels of biodiversity but genuinely in 30 years of nature watching in the parish I have never known it like this. The optimistic half of me says it might just be a blip because of poor early spring weather etc. but the pessimistic (realistic?) side says this is the inevitable outcome of a constant year on year decline, particularly in insect numbers.

Anyway, on to more positive things because despite it all I did have a couple of additions to my village list. Pick of these was this superb Broad-bodied Chaser…

This is a species that has been increasing significantly in the north and there have been a couple of recent records in the parish but this was my first village sighting.

The other was a chance find on the garden wall, Small Dusty Wave…

These following three are relatively common species but I haven’t consciously recorded them (or at least photographed them) before…

Splayed deerfly – a fearsome looking beast!

Bumblebee hoverfly

Narcissus Bulb Fly

And talking of keeping positive, it’s important to remember there are some good news stories like the resurgence of the Common Buzzard. I can still remember the buzz of seeing my first village flyover and now there are between 5 and 6 territories in the parish. I photographed this one near the river last week…

28th May 2023

Interesting bird sightings were very scarce this week but I did get a new (sort of) ‘tick’ for the parish with a Bar-headed Goose flying over with a skein of Canadas…

More depressingly the Lapwing I saw today was my first in the village since March. Although I haven’t yet covered all the potential breeding sites I haven’t yet found any evidence of nesting in the parish this year.

Insects too seem to be in exceptional short supply, certainly the cold damp weather hasn’t helped but even the last two days of sun have not revealed anything like usual numbers. Nevertheless, it was nice to see my first Wall butterfly of the year…

And I also picked up my first Painted Lady this year…

Looking through the excellent Yorkshire butterflies and moth report which arrived this week,

it’s interesting to see how Gatekeeper has rapidly spread in Yorkshire. There was one record just the other side of the Wiske last year so hopefully It may not be too long until we add this species to the parish list.

Incidentally the strange male/female Orange Tip I found a couple of weeks ago…

is just that, a gynandromorph. A word I confess I had not heard of until this month. My insect is a mosaic gynandromorph, where the female and male characteristics are mixed together, but you can also get bilateral types where one half is female and one male!! The butterfly recorder described this as the best find in Yorkshire this year (mind you its only May!!)

Another striking insect sighting this week was this Golden-bloomed Grey Longhorn beetle.

They used to be mainly confined to the midlands and east of England but this is another one that seems to be progressing north with climate change.

Yesterday I went on a ‘twitch’ with Frank to try and see a couple of new species for me. The first was the Sword-leaved Helleborine at one of its few northern sites, Talkin Tarn. This was surprisingly easy to find and what a beautiful orchid it is… 

The second target, Marsh Fritillary butterflies at Finglandrigg Wood, were not so compliant. Despite apparent reports of them earlier this week there were none to be found. Nice spot though and good to see the memorial to the great Derek Ratcliffe…

14th May 2023

Pick of the birds today was my first Garden Warbler of the year…

Luckily it was singing within a few yards of this (completely tail-less) Blackcap...

so a really good chance to compare songs (which I always struggle to re-learn each spring).  

On the river yesterday there were three very young Goosander ducklings (this is only the second time there has been evidence of breeding in the parish) and three Willow Warblers…

The latter used to be the commonest warbler in the village, after Whitethroat, but numbers have really fallen in the last few years.

Along Potter Lane there were at least two pairs of Yellow Wagtails…

But only a single singing Corn Bunting…

They seem to be scarce this year with only three counted singing between the river and the lane against a typical recent total of seven or eight pairs. In contrast Chris says the numbers around Thrintoft seem to be noticeably higher than usual.   

Yesterday’s sun, after a week of cold and rain, got the butterflies on the wing. Alongside the railway I had eight Speckled Woods….

Plus Green-veined White, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshell and 20+ Orangetips including this one which looks like a female but has orange on the underwing and bleeding through to the upperwing…

I assume this is just a faded male?

8th May 2023

It’s been a shamefully long time since I last posted, a reflection of being overly busy and a lack of things to report! So yesterday I walked along the river with Sam who has just taken up birding. As we walked to the bridge stile, I heard my first Lesser Whitethroat of the year. A second calling bird means 2023 has already outstripped the number of sightings in 2022!   

Sand Martin numbers have at last built up to expected numbers and there were particularly good flocks feeding over the first bend. We saw or heard at least three Yellow Wagtails…

And then as I scanned a small flock of Mallard on the far bank I picked up a beautiful drake Mandarin. This is only my second sighting in the parish (and the first male) of a species that is noticeably increasing in Yorkshire…

Incidentally the Chinese name for Mandarin is also applied as a slang term to couples where the one partner is noticeably better looking than the other (reflecting the rather dowdy female against the rather splendid drake)!

We walked as far as the rookery bend and had another year tick in the form of Common Sandpiper which flicked away downstream.

As we walked back I half-heard a vaguely familiar sound, it was a Grasshopper Warbler ‘reeling’ from willow scrub on the far bank. This is a really scarce bird in the parish and only my third record. A great end to a productive couple of hours.

Otherwise it has been a strange spring, whilst most migrant species have been recorded (including the first Swifts on the 2^nd May) most are still only present in very low numbers, e.g. only a single singing Willow Warbler and none of the nesting Swallows in our road have returned yet.

Butterflies have been particularly noticeable by their absence with only six species so far and these in very low numbers…

The one species that definitely has had an exceptional year is the Cowslip with many new sites and very high density in the regular places…