Destinations
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French Pyrenees 7 – 14 September 2010
Birds
Highlights, in addition to those mentioned previously, could include short-toed eagle, peregrine, alpine swift, black woodpecker, woodlark, crag martin, water pipit, blackbellied dipper, crested tit, red-backed shrike and citril finch.
Butterflies
Butterflies include apollo, Camberwell beauty and swallowtail, plus a selection of graylings, ringlets, blues, fritillaries and others. It’s our first September visit so the fun will be discovering which species are on the wing.
Flowers
High mountain pastures should still have colour with later flowers such as Pyrenean thistle, giant yellow gentian and white false helleborine.We’ll search for flowers on rocks, screes and streamsides and seek out patches of late snowmelt for alpines like gentians, primroses and butterworts.
Other wildlife
Watercourses can hold Pyrenean brook newts and Pyrenean rock lizards scuttle around on rocks in the higher pastures.
Places to visit
The cirque of Gavarnie is rightly famous; it can be busy but that takes little away from its magnificence and wildlife interest. Other sites to be visited include the Barrage des Gloriettes, Saugué valley, Ossoue valley, Col de Tentes, Col du Tourmalet and Cirque de Troumouse.
Isards - Pyrenean chamois (Ivan Nethercoat)
Purple-edged copper
Fragrant and large butterfly orchids growing together at Gavernie
