A wild land? A photo-story from the South of France

Deep in the languedoc region of Southern France, in the mediterranean foothills of the Pyrenees, there lies a hidden valley…

Whilst in the region of the vines of the Corbieres, the valley, and its surrounds, is wild and largely uncultivated…

This is the land of wild boar. They leave their tracks…

…and markings everywhere…

But wisely, these creatures are elusive, for this is also the land of hunters. Though many hours have been spent stepping carefully through the valley, I have only glimpsed flashes of the beasts. Only once, too, have I captured a distant shot of a roe deer…

In winter and summer, the fauna of the valley is shy and wild. Common birds that we know as garden friends, such as the Blackbird, are plentiful but almost as elusive as the boar. The merest tread of a foot sends theses birds diving deeper into thickets for cover squawking their alarm as they go. In half a decade of visits to the valley, this twig-obscured shot of a feasting female (taken this winter) is the best I have done…

In the winter, the Blackbird is joined by its migratory cousins from the frozen North, the Redwing…

… and Fieldfare…

The stony and often dry land is populated by a range of pines…

… and the evergreen Holm (or Holly) Oak, Quercus ilex, which has been used to build the classical ships and wagons of Homer and Hesiod for thousands of years and has fed wild boar from its acorns and root-protected truffles for millions of years…

What is wild?

At first glance, the valley seems wild, but it has not always been so. Amidst the natural outcrops of rock (pushed up by the Pyrenees) stand well camouflaged rocks laid out as walls by the hands of long-dead men…

…and even in relatively recent decades, this land was used productively…

The urge for man to reclaim the land is strong and I helped an inhabitant of the valley clear a small plot of brambles to make way for an olive grove. However, the valley is now largely in the ‘hands’ of the wild things.

Comparing the seasons

This winter, I walked past Old man’s beard…

… and erupting Puff-ball fungi…

… but in the Spring, flowers, not fungi, dominate including thousands of stalks of Asphodel…

… caterpillars emerge and turn to butterflies…

… and weird creatures appear in the grasses, like this mantis…

I scoured the dwindling pools (it has been a dry winter so far) and found only Water boatman…

… whilst in warmer months past, I have watched newts, such as this Palmate…

The birds that hide in thickets during the cold and scorching months, and those that migrate away from the chill, return during the spring to sing, such as this Serin…

… this resident warbler, the Blackcap…

…And at the right time of year, the valley chimes through day and much of the night with the song of the Nightingale…

Beyond the valley

If you climb the steep slopes of the valley, you reach the summit rocks where ravens and birds of prey feed. Looking down south from the pass, you see yet another similar valley…

Lifting your eyes up out of this valley and staring south, the blue of the distance only partially hides the mighty peaks of the Pyrenees, such as Mount Canigou…