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Simon and I did a 2 kilometre circuit walk around Abilly on 14 March, after checking on the Snakeshead Fritillary colony just out of town. It was 10°C, no wind and starting to cloud over. The fritillaries appeared to be thriving.
Eurasian Red Squirrel Sciurus vulgaris (Fr. Ecureuil roux) in a weeping willow. 'Squirrel' is one of the hardest English words for a French speaker, and conversely, 'écureuil' is one of the hardest words in French for an English speaker to say.
Look how close it came to me! This photo has been cropped, but it was taken with my mobile phone!!
Le Relais de Touraine, an old hotel recently renovated with help from local government grants, and next door the small grocery store.
This side of the water mill has been in this ruinous state ever since we've lived in the area.
This side of the water mill has been restored and is lived in.
A gate made from two old wooden cart wheels.
I wish I had taken the time to take a better photo of this Art Nouveau leaning house. This is just a phone shot taken in passing from the corner of the street.
Cowslips Primula veris (Fr. Coucou) on the side of the voie verte (greenway), with Simon striding out into the distance.
Snakeshead Fritillaries Fritillaria meleagris (Fr. Fritillaire pintade), a species that can be found in the wild in a band across Central Europe from France to Siberia. The species is threatened and is protected wherever it occurs in France, but it has gone extinct in Belgium and parts of France, and is critically endangered in the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Snakeshead Fritillaries grow in damp habitat and are one of the earliest spring wild flowers.
Snakeshead Fritillaries are pollinated by Buff-tailed Bumble Bees Bombus terrestris and other early emerging bees.
Glass-winged Drone Fly Eristalis similis is an abundant hover fly usually encountered in damp woodland habitat. The trick naturalists have to learn is how to distinguish from its lookalike Eristalis spp cousins, especially the even more abundant (ubiquitous even) Tapered Drone Fly E. pertinax and Common Drone Fly E. tenax.
Male Glass-winged Drone Fly, photographed by me in early March this year on vegetation alongside the voie verte (greenway) at Chaumussay.
The key differences require taking careful note of the colour (light or dark) of each leg, and certain details of the wing markings.
Drone flies are all mimicking honey bees, and they are frequently mistaken for bees by the public. The news media will often publish a stock image of a drone fly to illustrate an article about bees, much to the exasperation of entomologists. Drone flies are terrific and very active pollinators. They spend much of their time as adults visiting flowers, but their life cycle is very different to bees. Drone fly larvae develop in wet pockets that form in rot holes in mature tree trunks, and sometimes they can be found in gardens in containers which have accumulated a mixture of water and rotting vegetation. The larvae are known as rat-tailed maggots, on account of their long thin breathing tubes, which they use like a snorkel while under water and consuming decaying plant material in a bucket, a ditch or a rot hole.
For comparison, a male Common Drone Fly photographed by me in early May 2023 at la Cabane, a Zone d'Interêt Ecologique, Floristique et Faunistique (ZNIEFF) that I monitor.
For comparison, a male Tapered Drone Fly that I photographed in April 2004 in London, England.
Golden Ear Naematelia aurantia (Fr. Trémelle orangée) is a parasite of the abundant bracket fungus Hairy Curtain Crust Stereum hirsutum growing on hardwood trees, especially oak and beech.
It is frequently confused with Yellow Brain Tremella mesenterica. The trick is to look for the host. Hairy Curtain Crust for Golden Ear, but Peniphora species crust fungi are the hosts for Yellow Brain.
It can also easily be mistaken for Orange Jelly Spot Dacrymyces chrysospermus, but this species grows on conifers, not deciduous trees.
Golden Ear looks like a sort of crumpled yellow jelly.
On Saturday 7 March I participated in a botany outing to the Parc de la Vallée at Mettray, led by Dominique Tessier. He is their biodiversity adviser. Here is a small selection of the 200 photos I took.
Straw Bristle Moss Orthotrichum stramineum.
The Choisille River winds through the park.
Black Stone Flower lichen Parmotrema perlatum (Fr. Fleur de pierre noire) is a widespread species that occurs in temperate climates everywhere. It is used as a spice in India.
A Douglas Fir cone.
An alderfly Sialis sp. Without seeing the abdomen it is not possible to say for sure which species.
Eastern Sycamore Lace Bug Corythucha ciliata (Fr. Tigre du platane). Pick off any piece of London Plane tree bark and you will find one of these non-native bugs lurking on the underside. The species arrived in France in 1975, from America, and is one of the vectors for two deadly fungal diseases of sycamores, to which London Plane Platanus x hispanca is particularly susceptible.
A rosette lichen Physcia sp.
Oakmoss Evernia prunastri, for once not growing on oak, and distinguishable from lookalike species by its mottled white underside. It is best known as being an ingredient for perfumes.
Hooded Tube Lichen Hypogymnia physodes.
Bitter Wart Lichen Lepra amara. I taste tested this patch. Definitely bitter.
The sports club at the main entrance to the park. The junior soccer team were practicing while we were there, and there were quite a few members of the public strolling or dog walking in the park. Several times we were asked about what we were doing and people seemed genuinely interested.
Wrinkled Crust Phlebia radiata (Fr. Phlébie rayonnante) is an inedible resupinate* fungus of dead wood in the white rot family. It forms gelatinous lumpy irregular radiating patches about 10 cm across. It can be anything from pale greyish pink to bright orange in colour, depending on age.
Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere it grows on broadleaf and sometimes conifer trees, especially on oak and beech, and in the case of these photos, taken in the Forest of Preuilly, on birch. It doesn't smell or taste of anything in particular.
*Resupinate means the fungus forms a scab like crust, and is stuck to the wood substrate. It does not have loose or projecting brackets.
It is twenty years ago today that we made our first home hunting trip to France. This is my report, first blogged in August 2006.
When we decided to actually get serious about France, we started looking in the Charente. We had spent a magic week at Bas' place near Confolens, and naturally this was the first place we looked. Finding a house in our price range wasn't going to be easy though. There were a number of houses shown on the various internet sites, but they were in a condition even more perilous than we were prepared to take on.
Susan at dinner with Bas, Terracher
There were a number of criteria that had to be met. We needed a large garden of at least 2000 square metres for growing our self sufficiency vegetables. It had to have guest accomodation for paying guests. And it had to be in the country, far enough away from a town that it was quiet, but not so far away that the market was inaccessible.
For various reasons, all of them too distant in the past to be able to justify properly, we started looking at a small town called Argenton-Chateau in Deux Sevres. There was a nice large ex-forge overlooking the river which was just about in our price-range. After emailing the immobilier we waited......and waited. After a while, we received an answer, and arranged to see the property. Then 2 days before we were due to leave we received an email saying that it had been sold. We decided to visit Argenton-Chateau anyway, as our flights and accomodation had been booked.
The flight (from Gatwick to Nantes) was delayed by 4 hours and 59 minutes, meaning that we arrived at past 2.00am in France. BA had given us food tokens at Gatwick, but only one restaurant was open (and that soon closed) so I bought about £30 worth of biscuits and bottled water. At Nantes, BA booked us a hotel for free because the car hire place was, understandably, closed.
The house and its view near Thouars
We went to the immobilier in Thouars, who took us to see a couple of properties. The best one was part of a farm complex, the rest of the farm still being in operation . It didn't grab either Susan or myself, even though it wasn't expensive, and the agent said the owners were willing to make a deal. The main problem is both houses were small, and it was out in the sticks. The garden consisted mainly of a huge concrete hardstanding. It had a great view though - a derelict chateau standing (but only just) about 100 metres away. On reflection, we may have been expecting a bit much!
The house at Argenton Chateau
That afternoon, with another agent, we visited a few properties closer to Argenton Chateau. Once again there was no enthusiasm from either of us for any of the properties. I then asked about a property that I had seen advertised, but which filled none of our criteria. It was a house which had been converted into a hairdressers at some time in the past, which stood exactly opposite the church, only 50 metres or so from the Market square.
For some reason this place really appealed. We told the agent we were seriously interested and left for the day. We spent the whole of the next day in and around Argenton Chateau, and on our return to London, decided to make an offer. We rang the agent, decided in consultation with him as to what our offer would be, actually put the offer in - and then the vendor decided not to sell.
This put us both into a bit of a sulk. The next trip was to be more inspiring.
Simon
In hindsight, we are glad we missed out on the house in Argenton. I'm not sure how we would have earned a living, and I suspect the ex-hairdressers was in need of a lot more work than we realised. The other kicker is that Argenton Chateau changed it's name to Argenton-les-Vallées in September 2006, and again to Argentonnay in 2016. I'm not sure I would have kept up.
With the spring comes the possibility to forage for wild edible plants. This is increasingly trendy and last year's booklet of nature outings published by the Département of Indre et Loire was full of workshops and outings to teach the public how to forage for edible plants and how to prepare them.
Autumn Crocus photographed in March.
Part of being able to forage for edible plants is knowing how to correctly identify them and not poison yourself. Between 2020 and 2022 there were 28 cases of poisoning, resulting in four serious cases of liver damage and two deaths, because people mistook toxic Autumn Crocus Colchicum autumnale (Fr. Colchique) leaves for the delicious edible garlic flavoured wild leaf of Ramsons Allium ursinum (Fr. Ail des ours). There is a risk of mistaking Wild Arum and Lily of the Valley for Ramsons too.
People mostly make pesto with Ramsons, but it is also used in salads, sautéed or in quiches. One simple way to tell if you have Ramsons is to rub the leaves between your fingers. This should produce a strong garlic smell. If it doesn't, do not eat your harvest.
Ramsons.
Autumn Crocus leaves are stiffer, slightly fleshy, with rounded tips and no stem. Ramsons leaves are pointed ovals, with stems.
The French Anti Poison Centres recommend the following as best practice:
