Destinations
The air holidays shown are ATOL Protected by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 3253. ATOL Protection extends primarily to customers who book and pay in the United Kingdom. Click on the ATOL logo if you want to know more.
Dordogne 6 – 13 May 2010
Flowers
Lady, man, burnt-tip, fly, woodcock, narrow-leaved helleborine and greater butterfly are among the orchids, and two great surprises this far north are sombre bee orchid and long-lipped serapias. Some 250 plant species include meadows thick with yellow rattle, banks with meadow clary, tassel hyacinth, milkwort and a range of cranesbills, flaxes and rockroses. Dogwood, fly honeysuckle and field maple are common shrubs.
Woodcock, pyramidal and fly orchids (Sue Staniforth)
Birds
Serins, Bonelli’s warblers, short-toed treecreepers and hoopoes are all found around Castang or close to home. Black kites and buzzards are the most frequently seen birds of prey; hobbies are also likely.
Other wildlife
Butterflies on the wing in mid-May include scarce and common swallowtails, black-veined and wood whites, Cleopatra, Glanville fritillary, green hairstreak, large copper and small blue. Elegant yellow and black ascalaphids – something between a lacewing and an ant-lion – hunt over meadows. Other invertebrates include violet carpenter bee and hummingbird hawkmoth. After dark, the “poo...poo” of midwife toads and glow-worms.
Sooty copper, female
Long-lipped serapias (Sue Staniforth)
See Honeyguide's web page about
orchids in the Dordogne
Website about the orchids of France here (in French). Botanists are debating orchid taxonomy, so scientific names here are not always what we generally use.
Ascalaphid
