This is the weekend when most of France seems to get up, take to their vehicles and head off on their holiday/vacation. Comme d’habitude [as usual], it is also the weekend that we start heading home. Fortunately, most of France was on the autoroutes heading south; the south bound carriageway on our A20 autoroute was three lanes of stationary traffic at a few . We, on the other hand, were heading north and had the advantage of very light traffic indeed.

The weather in northern Europe seems to have been pretty much total crap since the beginning of June. Britain has certainly been suffering, from what we’ve heard, and so has much of northern France. To repeat Gerard’s quote from the Marais Poitevin, spring was a “catastrophe!”. Summer hasn’t started any better. Since we returned to the top half of France, it’s certainly been unsettled. The saving grace for those poor Parisians pointing south while remaining stationary on the A20 is that the extreme south is the only spot enjoying anything resembling summer weather. Heading north, the skies continued to darken and at Chartres, the rain began. This was not a summer storm sky, this was a solid mass of unbroken grey (various shades but mostly dark) from horizon to horizon and all but on the deck; there was no break. For those heading north, the only saving grace was that the traffic was light.

Miraculously, a rare, brief respite in the rain coincided with our pitching up at Neufchâtel-en-Bray and we didn’t get too wet. It was short lived, though. As we shopped in the local Leclerc supermarché, I thought a machine had suddenly been switched on but it was rain hammering on the roof.

We returned to Guillaume with our booty. Here’s a couple of shots from our windows. You may know that I always blur other folks number plates so as not to provide identification information. You’ll see from the first shot that resorting to Photoshop Elements was unnecessary – the rain has blurred everything for me.

Here’s as close to artistic as I can get in such conditions. This picture, resembling the cover one of the earlier (and great) Peter Gabriel albums, is a river running down one of Guillaume’s side windows. The unfortunate Dutch owner of the caravan blurred by Guillaume’s river, was trying to get set up in this.

Summer’s been cancelled in Britain for the last couple of years. Every time I mutter something along the lines of, “it can’t get worse than this”, it proves me completely wrong by doing so. I won’t say it again.

Thursday and Friday have been days spent putzing about in relatively brief intervals between showers/downpours. The most productive of our putzes was a trip down to the étang de Cistude just beyond Mézières-en-Brenne. Here there is a boardwalk and pathways to a couple of hides where you can sit and watch wild birds to your hearts delight. The étang’s name derives from the fact that it plays host to the Cistude d’Europe [European Turtle] and there are road signs warning of turtles as you make your approach.

The étang de Cistude is also the home of the Maison de la Nature [literally, House of Nature]. In the house, as well as the information boards which I can rarely be bothered to read, it also has a respectable collection of nature books for sale. Naturally, these tend to be in French. This is where I was first impressed by a copy of the butterfly guide, Guide des Papillons d’Europe et d’Afrique du Nord (if I’ve remembered the title correctly). The book collection was the main reason for our visit; Francine fancied a rummage.

Naturally, whilst Francine rummaged, I was casting my eye over the titles, too. The books seem less than logically organized but my eyes eventually lighted on a moderately large hardback enticingly entitled, Les Libellules de France, Belgique et Luxembourg [Dragonflies of … etc]. Surprisingly, I knew of this publication. Indeed, it had been recommended to me by a fellow Odo enthusiast. I had tried to locate a copy chez moi but had failed. I thumbed through it to confirm to myself that it was, as suggested, something of a bible on the subject, and, satisfied, tucked it under my arm.

Meanwhile, back at Francine, she was having trouble deciding between two orchid books. One was wrapped so she was unable to inspect it. Decisions, decisions! She eventually settled on the one that she could inspect: Atlas des Répartition des Orchidées de l’Indre [Distribution Atlas of the Orchids in the Indre departement – where we currently are]. A bit specialized it may be but there are 47 species noted and we’re likely to visit here again. Of course, we’ll have to arrive earlier than we did this time ‘cos orchid season has finished.

Orchid season wasn’t all that was finished. Regrettably, the ranger at the desk said the paper in his bank card machine was finished so we had to part with real cash which, luckily, we had. Pockets lighter and arms heavier, we returned to the car to stash our purchases and wait for a shower to pass.

It wasn’t a great day for photography but, after the shower, a Southern Darter did settle just above my eye-level so I was able to get a decent shot. Being yellow, I assumed this to be a female but no, it’s a teneral male. [The observant will be able to make out its secondary genitalia. 😉 ]

As the skies darkened again and just before the rain began, I found a Winter Damselfly lurking in the undergrowth. They’ve proved notoriously difficult (for me) to get a good shot of, especially at 1/25th second, which is what my camera was registering in the non-existent light. Then I remembered I’d got a built-in flash. “Why not?”, I thought, so I did. Here’s the best result, with the light showing the metallic bomb-shaped marks on the abdomen quite nicely (I think).

We got wet returning to the car again.

I think we are destined not to see the Réserve Naturelle du Pinail [Pinail Trail] at its best. We dropped in for our inaugural visit last year and, though we weren’t too disappointed – it produced our first ever Green-eyed Hooktail (Onychogomphus forcipatus) – it was suffering from a desperately dry spring and he weather during our stay wasn’t settled. Though we think we scared up two of its most celebrated inhabitants and gave chase, we failed to snag them on pixels.

Following a very interesting and successful day out with my new Odo-spotting friend yesterday, we thought we drive the 60kms/40mls or so over to the Pinail today to try again. The morning was warming up quite nicely as we left but, as we approached the area, the skies in the direction of the Pinail looked decidedly unsettled. Drat! We pressed on regardless, bought bread for lunch in Bonneuil-Matours and arrived at the Pinail shortly after 11:00 AM.

The weather was overcast but dry. It wasn’t really warm enough or sunny enough to galvanize Odos into frenetic activity, though. If you can find them, that can actually be an advantage ‘cos they are reticent to fly off.  However, my visual acuity is like that of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park in that it seems to be based largely on movement – if the Odos ain’t movin’, I don’t see ‘em. We did spot several of the usual suspects, though, and began snapping as we were overtaken by an older gentleman in the company of his grandson who was clearly receiving complex lessons concerning both wildlife and its photography in French.

We swapped places with the French pair a few times as we scoured the pools for our main quarry. Eventually we came to the pools where we think we’d seen them, and missed them, before. Francine went closer and muttered something containing the words, “quarry” and “not joking”, as she raised her camera. I joined her, spotted the quarry too and began clicking away from the very restricted position with gay abandon. Our French companions were close so, after we’d grabbed what we wanted, I shared the quarry with them and the young grandson moved in to try his luck.

I was now a very happy camper. The Pinail is home to one of the more difficult to find dragonfly types, White-faced Darters (Leucorrhinia). What we’d found, and this time managed to snag on pixels, was a male Large White-faced Darter (Leucorrhinia pectoralis). Yes, I know, you can’t see its face – that’s the way round it was, though. You can, however, see very clearly the diagnostic large lemon-yellow spot on the dorsal side of abdominal segment 7 (S7).  I’d have liked a full frontal, too, of course, but I was delighted with this.

We continued round the trail, occasionally swapping information and nattering with our new French friends. At one point the grandpère called us in to a pond where a Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata) was perching and flying sorties. His well trained grandson moved as stealthily as he could struggling gamely with a very large camera, including battery pack, while I used my height advantage to shoot over his head.

We both retired happy to the car park for a late lunch, I think, where grandpère shared another couple of useful locations with us. That’s for another year, though.

My fellow dragonfly spotting e-contact lives outside the Parc Naturel Régional de la Brenne but uses it to run the occasional dragonfly tour. So, he’s very familiar with the park and some of its more fruitful locations. He actually uses the holiday village at Bellebouche, which is where we are camped, as one of the bases for the tours. Since he’d have to pay to get in, we’d arranged to meet at 10:00 AM outside the entrance.

Most of our Odo hunting has been around a couple of small étangs immediately behind the campsite. We’d wandered around part of the much larger étang de Bellebouche itself without adding anything to our tally. After meeting each other for the first time, we sped off to a green chemin [track] to the south of the large lake in search of a specific quarry known to be there, the highly prized Yellow-spotted Emerald (Somatochlora flavomaculata) – highly prized by me, at least.

After advancing slowly spotting several of the usual suspects for a while, hawk-eyed Francine noticed a dragon “hung-up” on one of the bushes beside the track. It did not look familiar to us. Excited though she was, mercifully she raised her camera and snapped it twice before it sped off – and before I could get a shot. We were not the only ones excited, our guide seemed quite excited, too. This was not our intended quarry but was another Emerald, an Orange-spotted Emerald (Oxygastra curtisii), which he did not know was in this location. Fortunately, the “orange spots” of this delightfully marked character are down the dorsal side of the abdomen and show up well in Francine’s shot.

Very shortly afterwards, we came across another dragon criss-crossing the track hunting for food. Binoculars showed it to be the very thing we’d come looking for, a Yellow-spotted Emerald. Unlike the Orange-spotted, it didn’t seem keen on settling to display its markings clearly. We frustratedly snapped away whilst it was in flight but the little darlings move so fast and unpredictably that getting anything of quality proved impossible. We saw several others further along the track but the day had warmed and it was the same story, all movement and no settling. Here’s a pretty poor best, just to give an idea. Again fortunately, in this character’s case the “yellow spots” are down the side of the abdomen so an in-flight shot would be fine (if it were sharp!).

We called in to the Maison du Parc as a useful lunch stop, including an excellent chocolate ice-cream. The lake here was absolutely teaming with mating pairs of Dainty Damselflies (Coenagrion scitulum).

Our last port of call was to a small, newly opened reserve called Terres de Picadon. The main culprits here were Small Red Damselflies (Ceriagrion tenellum), flitting about in the company of four types of Emerald Damselfly. The excitemnet, however, came as we were almost back at the car park. Here, over a small pond, a Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis) was patrolling and occasionally hovering. Once again, we went into desperation mode trying to grab flight shots. Just as we’d just about had enough, it unexpectedly hung-up on a bush. Francine was best placed to get the static side shot.

It was great to finally meet a fellow enthusiast who had previously been known only by an email address. Spotting three new species in one day was a bonus. Thanks a bunch!

As we’ve learned on a couple of occasions, when you lose friends that have been around you during a visit somewhere, they leave and you tend to feel like Billy Nomates – you might as well leave yourself and go somewhere new. Since Mike & Linda had left for Cognac, we were off today, too.

For a couple of years I’ve been exchanging information about dragonflies via email with an expat living over here in France. Before starting our trip, I’d floated the idea with him that we might actually meet face to face, for a change. This week he was supposedly free, lives near the Parc Naturel Regionial de la Brenne, and had offered to meet us. So, as part of our journey back north, we’ve planned to return to La Brenne to meet my e-contact. Before our meeting tomorrow (Tuesday), after a breeze of a journey we pitched up at lunchtime today to entertain ourselves for the afternoon.

The étang de Bellebouche is one of our more prolific Odonata sites, currently registering 19 species. Most of those occur round two small fishing lakes just behind the campsite itself so, after a relaxing lunch, we set off to see what we could find.

During our one-night stop on our way south, I’d seen a suspected new species for us, a Southern Emerald Damselfly (Lestes barbarus) and one of my missing females, a White-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum albistylum). My first capture of the afternoon wander looked like a better positioned female White-tailed Skimmer but, upon closer examination, this was no lady, it was a teneral male before developing the characteristic blue pruinosity. Happy camper!

I had been unsure about my Southern Emerald Damselfly because the pterostigma, the coloured spots on the leading edge of the forewing towards the outer edge, were uncoloured; they should have been bicoloured, split about 50/50. That was early in the season, though, and I suspected it was teneral [recently emerged]. This afternoon I was pleased to find examples of mature individuals looking the same except for the fact that their pterostigma looked right. My doubts disappeared.

Now we’re looking forward to seeing what my e-contact might be able to show us tomorrow.

Many years ago, I mused about the fact that there was one law in England that you had no way of knowing that you were breaking – the drink driving law. It’s legal to have <80mg/ltr of alcohol in one’s blood stream and still drive. However, we Brits were specifically disallowed the ability to test our blood alcohol level. If you murder someone, you know you’re breaking the law – it’s an absolute. Break into a house and run off with someone else’s TV and stereo and you know you’re committing an offence. That’s an absolute. If you drink a little, however, there’s no way to tell whether you’re allowed to drive or not. Of course, one could adopt the zero drink approach (as required, I think, in Norway – or is it Sweden?) but that makes a nonsense of our allowing an acohol level of <80mg/ltr. Why are we not allowed to purchase breath test equipment? It makes no sense.

Today is an interesting day in France. From today it is compulsory for all cars to carry an alcootest [breathalyzer], hence my B-Day terminology. Our driving organizations recommend carrying two so that, if you have to use one, you still have one fulfilling the legal requirement. For a few weeks, when out shopping we wandered around looking to purchase said alcootests and eventually got some in a newsagent inside an hypermarché. We’ve got four. Ready! Whilst this might have been seen as a nuisance requirement, how sensible it is. In France now, not only can you test your alcohol level but you must be able to. Much more sensible than stupid old Britain where you are forced to guess. Bravo France!

Anyway, with friends Mike and Linda having left us for a blues festival at Cognac, we were left to face B-Day on our own. We decided on another trip to the coast, this time to investigate Fouras, just south of La Rochelle. We took the bikes, parked up and pedalled about, though it was a close run thing since Mr Bozo, Franco, forgot to pack Guillaume’s step to gain the height required to retrieve and replace the cycles. Sometimes, being Twizzle [sorry America, reference to a very old English childrens’ TV show] would be really useful. Somehow, I stretched myself enough to manage.

Just off the coast of Fouras is the Île d’Aix where Napoleon was imprisoned for a while. A ferry runs regular services from Fouras to the island but we just watched and said, “ooh, ah!”, not being that kind of tourists.

This is seafood country where the good ol’ French grow excellent moules de bouchot. The bouchots are wooden stakes upon which the mussels are grown. Much more interesting than a trip to Napoleon’s erstwhile prison was a traditional moules et frîtes lunch. After a look around the town, including its bustling Sunday market, we chose a waterside restaurant advertising our desired meal and sat down to a very enjoyable, if somewhat naughty, feast. I must point out the following. Look at the chips/French fries/frîtes in this picture. In stark contrast to the limp, flaccid, soggy items served up by our chosen lunch restaurant (la Guingette) at Argens-Minervois on the canal du Midi a few weeks ago, this restaurant did not need a lesson in cooking chips. These frîtes left nothing to be desired; they were fluffy on the inside, crisp and golden on the outside and not at all oily – perfect!

I limited myself to two small glasses of white wine so as not to use one of our alcootests. Francine drank the remainder. I kept expecting swarms of gendarmes to be stopping cars checking that they had their alcootest equipment but it didn’t seem to happen – yet. 🙂

In other words, “a disastrous spring?”

We arrived here in the Marais Poitevin, just inland from La Rochelle about half way down France’s west coast, on Monday. On Tuesday we went on a very pleasant, mostly sunny 15mls/24kms promenade à velo [bicycle ride] through the marsh with resident friends Mike and Linda in search of an orchid field they’d found about a month ago. Eventually we found it but the field was now occupied by a small herd of rather attractive reclining cows; it was decidedly orchid-free. Flitting about a few sunny patches beside some of the smaller water channels en route, I noticed a few damselflies but none in high numbers.

After the ride, as we were returning to Guillaume, I spotted Gerard, a local we’d been introduced to on previous visits. Gerard punts barque-loads of tourists on trips through the marsh, explaining aspects of the local area as he goes. We had a natter using my stilted French and I suggested, “mauvais printemps” [bad spring] to him. “Catastrophe!”, he replied emphatically, translation being superfluous. I suspect he was referring to the lack of tourists spending money on barque trips but I was beginning to think it was applicable to the wildlife populations, too.

For the last two days, Francine and I have pedalled round a bit more of the marsh looking at some of our previously observed Odonata locations and what we’ve seen – or rather, not seen – left me somewhat shocked. Several of the areas where we had spent some time observing Odos during previous years were apparently deserted. Other hot-spots had a few Odos but nowhere near the numbers that I have come to expect.

France, particularly the northern half of France, has been subjected to the very same terrible spring weather that has been afflicting the UK. When some good weather turns up, it doesn’t stick around for very long and there has been a lot of overcast skies, considerable rain and a lot of colder than expected days. Temperatures have been up and down like a yoyo; on Wednesday here it hit a sweltering 36°C/97°F but Thursday topped out at just 21°C/70°F. None of this instability and cool is very good for insects in general and low insect populations have a knock-on effect on all insectivores. I’m staggered, though, by the apparent reduction in dragonflies. When we come here it is usually on the way south (late May/early June) and now we are a few weeks later, dropping in on the way back north. Late June/early July, though, should be pretty much the height of the Odonata season.

In the south, Fanjeaux was very low on dragonflies, though I’ve largely blamed the fish-farming for that reduction. Now, however, we are seeing it here in the north, too. Maybe Fanjeaux is suffering from two separate effects.

Having been so impressed by the life relatively teeming at les tourbières de Vendoire last weekend, with everywhere else apparently suffering, I’m wondering how spectacular les tourbières might be in a good year.

About 18 months ago, one of my UK dragonfly enthusiast contacts helped me out (not for the first time and certainly not the last) with the identification of a (to me) confusing specimen in France. At the same time, he offered to provide me with some information regarding interesting French locations for Odonata when I returned home. He’s a busy chap and the details didn’t turn up. He didn’t forget, though. Last week, having remembered for a second time, an email arrived with some new location suggestions together with what less-than-common species might be found there.

One of the sites mentioned was the Ile d’Oléron where, apparently, there are populations of the so-called Dark Spreadwing (Lestes macrostigma). This curious damselfly has a preference for brackish habitats and, according to the distribution map, occurs in scattered small populations. We are now up at the Marais Poitevin, just inland from La Rochelle, visiting friends Mike and Linda – not a million miles from the Ile d’Oléron. Today was forecast to be hot (34°C/93°F) and sunny; a somewhat cooling coastal breeze and a hunt for an uncommon Odo might be just the ticket. We took Mike and Linda along for a day out and a seafood lunch.

Navigation Officer Francine got us to the Ile d’Oléron in about 90 minutes. The route took us through an ironing-board-flat coastal marsh area south of Rochefort. For some reason, though dead flat, we find this area intriguing. So do hundreds of pairs of White Storks (Ciconia ciconia), who nest there. White Storks like to nest well above the ground and many of the locals erect platforms on posts specifically for their benefit. Some of the Storks seem to prefer a more exciting lifestyle, though, and shun the architect-designed platforms for those provided by high voltage electricity pylons. Francine snapped this shot as we drove by. (Readers should note the French have failed to provide anywhere safe to stop along this main road, hence the on-the-run snap.)

My dragonfly information mentioned specifically the minor roads between Arceau, Boyardville and St-Pierre-d’Oléron. After a coffee at a cafe run by the most unhelpful cafe owner in France (we should have voted with our feet and walked away – how some people manage to stay in business eludes me), we headed straight for Arceau. A small fishing lake in town yielded a Winter Damselfly (Sympecma fusca) and a couple of other more common suspects but not our main quarry. However, we stopped at the roadside beside the first ditch leaving town and … bingo! Linda and Francine were immediately onto a tandem pair of Dark Spreadwings. Further along the road we found a couple of ponds with a mother lode of the beautiful creatures. That cooling coastal breeze crossing the island also made photographic conditions rather difficult but, along with many discards, we did manage to secure some recognisable shots and were great to see.

Odo-ed out and stomachs beginning to demand attention, we continued to Boyardville and found a pleasant local seafood restaurant before heading back to the mainland to call in at Brouage, mainly for Mike and Linda’s benefit, who hadn’t seen this intriguing village sporting completely intact mid-17C fortifications, bang in the middle of the marsh. It was originally a coastal military base but the sea has now retreated. It was getting a little too hot (36°C/97°F) to do very much touristy stuff, though, and we soon headed back home with the car’s air-conditioning struggling to keep up.

All in all, a grand day out – except for the cafe. Take my advice and, if you’re ever in the neighbourhood, steer well clear of a cafe called “Le Croix du Sud” at the harbour in le Chateau-d’Oleron. 😉