There’s a road near here, heading south from Limoux, that we’ve been singularly remiss about investigating on all of our many visits. We set out to correct our oversight.

The first target en route after Limoux, which was smothered by a very large flea market, was Rennes-les-Bains, an attractive sounding spa town. On our approach, we drove past a fair number of people playing about in the river which flows through town from nearby springs. Being a Sunday, I thought it might be busy and that parking might be difficult but no, we got parked with no difficulty.

Heading straight for the river on our wander about town, our expectations of a well shod spa town soon evaporated. Whilst some of the river front properties, a restaurant, for example, looked well decorated and cared for, a good number of the river front was decidedly run down or, in some cases, just unfinished. Here’s a couple of example shots looking both ways along the river from a bridge. One way doesn’t look too bad, perhaps almost inviting given the colours and sunshine, but just look at the unfinished masonry off the monstrosity in the left of the second shot. Why on earth ..?

We’d have thought so much more could have been made of the place. Frankly, it looked seedy. One possible explanation occurred to us in the form of dropouts those seeking an alternative lifestyle, a number of which were wandering around in the baggy Kasbah trousers that they seem to favour. Perhaps when such folks move in, markets are affected and investment becomes pointless. Or maybe I’m just cynical.

A beer would have been a pleasant refreshment in a better environment but we decided against it and moved on in search of Arques and some nearby red earth that we’d seen mention of. We found it. Now, here’s a thing. I favour brown-tinted sunglasses as opposed to those nasty smoke-grey-tinted jobs. The former seem to enhance colours whereas grey flattens them and makes the world look a generally duller place. There is a potential problem with the former, however. We rounded a corner to be confronting by gobsmackingly red earth. Pull over and remove sunglasses to take a photo. Wait a minute, where did the gobsmacking red go? Sunglasses back on. Ah, there it is! The brown-tint has a similar effect to putting an 81C/D/E – you pick the strength – warm up filter on your camera. In these days of digital post-processing, such filters are almost a thing of the past, forcing you to do it Photoshop/Lightroom/your chosen digital darkroom. Anyway, here’s a shot from Francine, somewhat post-processed.

We did find a small village called Serres with an appealing river front complete with shady picnic tables for lunch. We skipped the beer, though there was a bar across the road, mainly because we thought it might be more interested in serving Sunday lunch as opposed to just a couple of drinks. As a bonus for yours truly, the river was supporting a decent population of dragonflies, including a couple that we’d not yet seen on this trip, most impressive being the Large Pincertail/Blue-eyed Hooktail (Onychogomphus uncatus), with its fearsome looking claspers. Quite how those help in a passionate embrace is beyond me. 😉

… my on-going survey .

The story so far.

This farm’s irrigation lake, a lake of about 2 hectares, used to swarm with libellules (dragonflies and damselflies). I have recorded 18 species here, though a couple were admittedly most likely fly-throughs It was, though,a very thriving population with many breeding species and some in very large numbers. Swarms of various types of blue-striped damselflies (Coenagrionidae) used to be able to be seen ovipositing on the lake’s floating vegetation. Dragonflies rarely swarm but there were certainly large numbers of Red-veined Darters (Sympetrum fonscolombii) and Broad Scarlets/Scarlet Darters (Crocothemis eryhtaea) present. Also well represented were the ubiquitous Black-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) and the slightly less ubiquitous White-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum albistylum).

A few years ago, enter the Grass Carps and the ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp intensively reared by a fish farmer with his own agenda and who, we suspect, “advised” farmer Luc about the lake’s ecology. The ecology certainly changed. The erstwhile abundant bird life disappeared completely as did the vegetation [Grass Carp – there’s a clue in the name]. The Libellule population also crashed. Several species disappeared altogether and those that remained appeared to be hanging on by their wing tips; no more swarms, just species represented by a few individuals, their populations now counted in single digits.

Last year we saw no evidence of the ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp, though there were still many schools of fish of varying sizes to be seen cruising about. Also visible were a few huge leviathans which may well be the vegetation-eating Grass Carp. Farmer Luc visited us in England last year and he seemed to realize that the ecology of his lake had been changed for the worse. I think he wants to redress the balance.

What of this year?

This year, we see (again) no evidence of any ornamental-but-otherwise-useless Koi Carp, just the floating feeding device lashed in a quiet corner of the lake unused. There are still very many fish of varying sizes, though perhaps less than last year, which would be a move in the right direction. We’ve been told by Marcel, farmer senior, that a Cormorant took up residence for quite a while and was doing its best to reduce the fish population. Now, however, other than an occasional visit by a passing Mallard, there is no sign of any birdlife on the lake. Neither, still, can I see any evidence of floating vegetation, the vegetation that is so necessary for damselfly oviposition. The story remains much the same as last year but with possibly less fish.

Thus far I have again logged 10 species of Odonata but all in very low numbers. The one species that does seem to be doing quite well is the Western Clubtail (Gomphus pulchellus), which we’ve seen probably approaching double digits. Of one of the previously most numerous dragonfly species, the Red-veined Darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii), a normally very successful species with a reproduction cycle of less than a year, I have seen so far just one example. The Broad Scarlet/Scarlet Darter (Crocothemis erythraea), also previously very numerous, looks as if it has disappeared altogether. I noticed this last year but wondered if we were ahead of the flight season. This year I know that’s not the case because other lakes nearby are supporting good numbers of them already.

I’m happier to note that the delightful Tree Frogs, missing last year, have this year returned to the trees and hedgerows lining the campsite pitches. Their demise could well have been down to a severe winter with considerable snow fall a couple of years ago. Also, though we have still seen no sign of any tadpoles, we have have had an allmost nightly chorus of water frogs croaking in the lake and come eye to eye with a small froglet in the grass just beyond Guillaume. So, I imagine the water frogs are managing to breed and that some spawn is surviving the appetites of the still large fish population.

The lake, though, remains a somewhat sad sight, given the rich diversity of life that used to thrive here. At least no further damage is being done but, alas, significant damage has already been done. What is needed is some vegetation, not only for the Odonata but also for water birds – dabbling ducks need something to dabble for, after all. I’m wondering if what is needed is a good handful of predatory fish. Some Perch would make short work of the shoals of smaller fish and maybe a Pike or two would deal with the larger buggers. Then perhaps we’d get some vegetation back in the lake.

Dream on, Franco. I imagine nature will eventually strike a more natural balance once again; I’m just impatient. 😉

As usual, when we arrived at our campsite we drove onto our assigned pitch and had in-depth discussions as to where precisely to site Guillaume. We’ve been here on this pitch so many times sthat we know pretty much where we want him but the discussions have to be had. I nudged him forward, facing the lake, and checked how level he was side to side. Not bad, he needed just one wooden block under a wheel to bring him to level. Brakes on, wheels chocked (he’s pointing downhill), corner steadies down and we were here.

I didn’t notice disturbing anything in the business of setting up – connecting the waste, connecting a water supply, etc. – but this morning, as I was topping up the water and rummaging around in Guillaume’s nose locker for Darwin-knows-what, I heard a frenetic flutter from one of the bushes beside our pitch. I peered into the bush and just about at eye level noticed a small bird’s nest. Nobody was home.

After finishing a few chores I returned to peer at the bird’s nest again and was delighted to see a small bird hunker down into it. Guillaume had a neighbour about 5ft/1.5m away from his nose but getting a decent look at the bird to try to identify it was very difficult. More than anything else, having pitched right next to its chosen home, we were very keen to disturb it as little as possible. I’d feel terrible if we caused a bird to abandon a nest and clutch of eggs. It seemed reasonably tolerant in that you had to get really close to cause the poor thing to flee but we determined to give it as wide a berth as possible.

After several failed attempts, I managed to get a decent lie up with a long telephoto while mum was sitting on the nest. I had thought perhaps Spotted Flycatcher but once a recognisable photo was to hand it clearly wasn’t flecked enough. My next thought was a warbler of some kind, say a ChiffChaff or Willow Warbler but they have greenish heads and eye stripes. Nah! Our culprit had a russet brown cap. Ah, female Blackcaps have a brown cap, perverse creatures that they are. Guillaume’s neighbour was a nesting Blackcap. Sometimes hubby took over egg-sitting and, with a distinctly black cap, was much more readily recognisable. [The bird in the picture, by the way, is panting, not singing – temperatures were hitting 33°C/91°F today.]

Still no camping neighbours for Guillaume, which suits us, though it isn’t so hot for Luc and Nadine.

We’ve spent a pleasant week in the Marais Poitevin with Mike & Linda but now it’s time for us to head south. What we haven’t done yet is pay for our 8-night stay at the Arçais camping municipale. francois, the man in charge, was not around yesterday when, normally, we’d have paid. With a 320-mile/500-kilometre journey ahead of us towing Guillaume, we needed a reasonably early start and nobody turned up by the time we hit the road. We decided to leave the money with Mike & Linda (they do know Francois) and taped a note in very bad French explaining on the door of the acceuil [reception]. Hopefully the gendarmes would not be chasing us down the autoroute to Fanjeaux.

We were not looking forward to some sections of this journey. We had done the route down the autoroute to Bordeaux and round it a couple of years ago, solo, and the roads around Bordeaux had been a snarled up nightmare. Happily our fears for a repeat performance were unfounded and we sailed around Bordeaux with no hindrance. What a dull autoroute the A10 down to Bordeaux is, though, at 55mph/90kph with Guillaume in tow. We hadn’t noticed when flashing past mile after mile of nothing but trees with no views beyond when driving solo. Now, Francine was getting very bored with nothing to look at and no navigating to do. 😉

The forecast for our run into the deep south had been good. The weather was apparently set fair for the remainder of the work and temperatures were supposed to climb markedly. The forecast seemed accurate, for today, at least; as we approached Fanjeaux the car’s thermometer was reading 29°C. I love it. Let’s hope the accuracy remains for the rest of the week.

Nadine, farmer Luc’s wife spotted us arriving on the single track road to the farm and left the sheep milking sheds to welcome us. We went on down to the campsite to get Guillaume installed and have a very necessary beer or three.

We haven’t quite got the site to ourselves, there is a French tent on the back row, which is level and suited to tents.

The Marais Poitevin is in some ways quite unlike anywhere else we’re familiar with in France. One of the most enjoyable shopping experiences in France, even for one such as myself who does not regard shopping as a recreational pastime, is wandering around one of the iconic French street markets. The reason for my making an exception here, of course, is that a good proportion of the street markets centre on French gastronomy and I’m likely to stumble across something that I can’t resist trying. The weirdest thing for us about the Marais Poitevin is its almost complete lack of markets. What happened to the French love of street markets here? We used to stay in Damvix a couple of miles down the road and that occasionally has an oyster stall set up shop in the street. Once we happened upon a rarely occurring farmers’ market there, too, but that’s it; no regular weekly street market. Now we stay at Arçais to make visiting Mike and Linda easier and that seems to lack a street market, too. Odd!

Most of our shopping when in Arçais is done in one of two supermarkets, a Super-U at Magné and an Intermarché at Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon. Both are a not too arduous car ride away. Our purchases here can occasionally be supplemented by a relatively meagre choice of items from a small local Coop at Arçais.

Unknown to us, however, there is a relatively little known further source of some specialist items from a very bizarre shop tucked away in an unnamed village/hamlet in the marsh. Mike, having lived here for a number of years, knows the area pretty well but even he had trouble finding this place for the first time. Telling someone where a shop is is a little difficult with no name involved; directions are about the only option. Directions concerning some of the more minor roads threading their way through the marsh can get quite convoluted. Nonetheless, Mike now knew roughly where this curious shop was and managed to take us there.

Mike parked outside a house in the said unnamed hamlet. [Silly choice of phrase – without a name how can the hamlet be a “said hamlet”? Just a thought.] The “shop” was clearly a converted garage on the side of the house. What makes this shopping experience most enjoyable is that the first thing the proprietor, Jean-Claude, does as a new customer enters his bijou establishment is to pour them a glass of wine. He generally pours himself another glass, too, of course. As the day wears on, Jean-Claude gets steadily more inebriated.

Several customers were already browsing around this marsh curiosity as we were receiving our welcome drinks. What they were browsing was a goodly selection of goats cheeses and some hams and sausages in vacuum packs. There was a fair spread of booze on offer, too, above a selection of eggs, some of which looked like quails eggs and others more like ducks eggs. I made my selections: two crottins of goats cheese and two packs of saucisses and approached Jean-Claude to pay. “Go and get another goats cheese”, said Jean-Claude (in French, of course). I happily complied. There was no till. I suppose a till would be far too formal in an establishment such as this, after all. Besides, Mike is quite sure that the authorities know nothing of this backstreet business in an unnamed hameau. Totals were arrived at on an elderly calculator and the till, as such , was Jean-Claude’s pocket. I think you’re probably quite right, Mike. 🙂

The sausages, I have to say, were the best I have ever tasted in France. [Hic!]

Friend Mike was keen to show us a few parts of “the marsh” with which we would probably be unfamiliar. Two in particular that he had in mind were less than straightforward for a local to find. Nonetheless, find them we did. Mike thought they might be reasonable sites for a dragonfly spotter, too. He was quite right on both counts.

Turning off a tarmac road, we trundled down a long forest track, past a man logging trees, and ended up at the far end of the track at a T-junction of two modestly sized drainage canals. The Marais Poitevin is tagged as the “Venice Verte” [green Venice] because the canals were largely covered, and I do mean covered, in floating duckweed making the canals a vivid green colour. However, following a relatively recent clean-up operation involving a new sewage plant – apparently raw sewage used to flow into the water system – the great majority of the duckweed has disappeared and the green water covering is no more. Frankly, some of the photographic charm of the marais is now missing, though I’m sure the environment will be better off. A new epithet for the Marais Poitevin may be required.

The canals T-junction was, indeed, a good spot for dragons, as well as for catching crayfish which is what Mike does here. It was particularly good for some of the dragonfly species that develop a pale blue covering of pruinosity, what Francine and I like to refer to collectively as prunes. A Scarce Chaser/Blue Chaser (Libellula fulva) was flitting about the junction itself. Up the smaller side arm a couple of Broad-bodied Chasers (Libellula depressa) were hunting, one of which posed advantageously. A Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum) also zoomed past me but my biggest surprise, because I don’t recall seeing the species here before, was a couple of White-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum albistylum), including an ovipositing female. Quite a collection of prunes. 🙂

We needed to time our escape because the logger occasionally left his enormous log-dragging tractor blocking the forest track while he disappeared off into the forest. Making a suitably timed run for it, where we escape to was a delightful mill on the river just outside Niort. Here, dozens of Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryx splendens) were flitting about the picturesquely arranged lily pads. I was expecting to find a Redeye of some sort, given all the leaves to sit on, but, no, not a one that I could see. There were a good number of the common-as-muck-around-here related Blue-eyes/Goblet-marked Damselflies (Erythromma lindenii), though, and a good smattering of Common Bluetails (Ischnura elegans). The large river (the Sèvre Niortaise) produced a Western Clubtail (Gomphus pulchellus), a Blue Emperor/Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) and a host more Blue Chasers.

11 species for the day. Here’s a couple of the nicer shots, plus the White-tailed Skimmer just ‘cos it’s a first in this area.

What a difference a night makes. Yesterday evening we’d been sitting outside sipping beers and glasses of wine in sunshine, albeit punctuated by clouds. This morning we’d awoken to Guillaume’s roof covered in rain drops and a Normandy countryside swathed in solid dark clouds that were on the deck and hiding the tops of those rolling green hills much beloved of the Normandy milk-producing cattle. Mercifully it wasn’t actually raining so packing up to hit the road was no problem. It was a good day for travel; what else would we do in weather like this?

We’ve arrived in France with a much more fixed idea of what we’ll be doing than we usually have. This is largely because we want to take a side trip into Spain to check on our house – and to experience what should be more or less guaranteed sunshine, since French springs are, like our own, less than reliable these days. Our first stop is planned to be a week at Arçais in the Marais Poitevin catching up with friends Mike and Linda who live there. Mike is interested in relieving me of my old Canon EOS 40D camera body to renew his interest in photography. I’ve brought it with me for him to try. We hit the road for what was likely to be an expensive day travelling most of the 340 miles on some of the more expensive French autoroutes.

I confess to being a bit bemused by the French autoroute charging logic. Some of the roads have long sections which are free; naturally, these are a little busier but they still have considerably less traffic than our own overcrowded  road network. Others have charges which don’t cause too much of a pain in the wallet. The autoroute down towards le Mans and beyond, however, could cause your credit card manager to phone checking that your card had not been stolen and misused – beyond Le Mans, we stumped up our first charge amounting to a princely €55.80. Our credit card manager would later be further concerned by a second charge of almost €20 more as we approached our destination 7½ hours after setting out – not bad with Guillaume on the back.

The weather had been clearing steadily as we approached the La Rochelle region. This area of France has a microclimate that gives it the second highest sunshine record in the country, behind that of the Côte d’Azure. Being a now sunny bank holiday Monday in France, Arçais was heaving with tourists as we made our final approach. The camping minicipale, however, looked blissfully (for us) under used and we found Guillaume what appeared to be a very spacious corner pitch offering both shade and sunshine.

Friend Mike arrived as we were enjoying a post-installation drink to invite us to dinner that evening. It’s good to be back.

A depressingly cold and grey spring thus far had made us, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about our preparations for another spring migration to France. Indeed, I had seriously considered turning up at Dover sans caravan and simply driving through to Spain. Besides, the thought of the P&O check-in agent looking quizzical and saying, “you forgot your caravan, mate” proved almost irresistible. Nonetheless, a warmer, sunnier day when I collected Guillaume to give him his bath lightened my mood and some enthusiasm returned. Guillaume is clean and loaded and we hit the road at 7:00 AM for Dover.

Here was my first brush with the new Dartford crossing charge mechanism. Gone are the toll booths that create serious delays on the overcrowded jaM25. This time I had paid in advance for booth our outward and return journeys. At l east, I hope I have! At this time early on  a Sunday morning, there were no delays making the crossing despite the 30mph speed limit that seems to have been put there in an attempt to reinstate the jams missing since the toll booths were removed. 🙂

We made Dover by 9:45 AM. No raised eyebrows at check-in implied that I’d remembered Guillaume and, since we were a couple of hours early for our 12:10 PM ferry, the agent kindly got us on board the earlier 11:10 AM sailing. Wonderful. [Note to self: early departures from home are OK, even for a wrinkly – go for a ferry around 11:00 AM in future. You’d think I’d know how to do this by now.]

We’d disembarked and were leaving Calais by 1:00 PM French time. The main road from the ferry port goes right beside one of the many refugee camps – there are now about eight – that have been created since the demise several years ago of the notorious Sangatte camp. Calais is essentially surrounded. The French have now erected a double line of razor wire capped fencing along the town side of  the road leaving the ferry port. I’m not convinced this is to keep the illegal immigrants at bay ‘cos if it is, it’s not very effective. We drove past several potential illegals wandering about beside the road and one small group crossing the road from one camp that could be seen from the road. Life in Calais for the French must now be decidedly unpleasant and worrying. My heart goes out to them. Everybody knows these so-called refugees are here illegally and are waiting for one thing, an opportunity to enter Britain illegally. They’ve already entered France illegally. Why we – we Europeans, that is – seem powerless to do anything about this flood of illegals is beyond me. Why on earth is it apparently so difficult to deport them? Britain already economic problems, far from fixed as yet, and it should not be our place to cure the woes of the rest of the planet. Bleeding heart liberals who cry about the situation of people putting themselves at risk through illegal acts really piss me off.

Calm! Once away from Calais, travelling through the real French countryside was a breath of fresh air, especially since we were blessed with sunshine and 20°C, two degrees warmer than anything our part of England has managed so far this year. My last long distance journey had been through Spain which, for the most part, had appeared to resemble an abandoned quarry. Here were rolling hillsides covered with lush green grass. France resembles a country that someone cares about whereas the 400 miles or so of Spain that we’d seen looked quite the opposite.

We arrived at our normal in/out campsite at Neufchatel-en-Bray, set up for the evening and enjoyed a relaxing drink or four sitting outside in the spring sunshine for the first time this year. I’d needed the France refresher. How time dulls the memory.