On April 4 at 1,400m, I noticed that dandelions and hepatica were just out. This is a five-week delay on the valley bottom at 400m and allows me to calculate that spring climbs at a rate of 200m a week, or 28.5m a day, or 1.19m an hour. Richard Mabey, author of 'Flora Britannica', states that it also heads north "at about strolling pace". It's more complicated than that of course; in our valley, spring starts on the pastures around the villages and heads uphill, but also downhill into the frost zone. This temperature inversion can be seen very clearly with the opening of the leaves on the forest.
Spring! What a feast of colour! A walk in the foothills reveals the varied-coloured earlies, hepatica and lungwort; daffodils, squill and others follow, then May arrives and all floral hell lets loose. You may see those gems, the orchids. Many of them resemble an animal or human; tiny men in spotty pyjamas are Burnt Orchids; ladies in skirts with 'smiley' faces are Lady Orchid; there are little soldiers, monkeys, bees, spiders and even lizards. It is a microcosm of strange imitation where evolution has gone to extremes; according to David Attenborough in Collins' 'Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe', in laboratory tests most wasps prefer the orchid to the real female wasp. It's the perfume, apparently, and this all tempts you to think of the orchid as cunning as it deposits its pollen on that poor aroused fool of a wasp.


Fly honeysuckle

Spring takes refuge in the mountains as summer marches in below. Many lovely species including numerous endemics grace the montane or sub-alpine woods, upland haymeadows, streamsides and rocks; the variety is stunning and each range has its own specialities. Some are common to all the uplands: the woods host the exuberant Martagon lily with its pink bonnet and luscious orange anthers; crags and cliffs offer the pink of the cactus-like houseleeks, and white floral spikes of saxifrage; marshes host hundreds of bird's eye primrose, plus insectivores like sundew and butterwort; the high hayfields twinkle with mountain pansy, cranesbill, or white lilies and later shimmer blue with thousands of tall Pyrenean iris, or yellow with the tall gentian whose root is used in apéritifs; short turf and rocky meadows are jewelled with the electric blue of spring and trumpet gentians. It is a feast where the eye and digital camera are all you need to dive in: snap away, it's easy to get great results even with a modest camera, preferably with the 'macro' option – or with high pixel count you can easily zoom in on your computer back home and edit.

Gregorie vitaliano

For birds, too, the season and location are great: a hike between the villages above Luchon (Haute-Garonne) gave us prolonged observation of the griffon vulture (soaring), bearded vulture (also soaring), Egyptian vulture (copulating) and short-toed eagle (gliding and hovering as it hunted for snakes - its main prey). Meanwhile there was an incessant movement of choughs and alpine choughs (chirping and chirruping) and ravens (more of a "Gronk!" really). In April, wheatear and ring ouzel join high meadow residents alpine accentor and black redstart, while lower down the familiar cuckoo and more exotic hoopoe will start their eccentricities again: the latter uses dung for its nest and is apparently a very smelly bird; with its retractable crest and butterfly wings, it is similar to the amazing little grey, black and red gem of the limestone crags, the wallcreeper.
My advice? If it's a good day, postpone everything, pack that sack, don't forget binoculars and digital camera and perhaps a good bird and flower book and head for the hills.

Botanical bibliography:
'Collins Pocket Guide: Alpine Flowers of Britain and Europe', by C. Grey-Wilson and M. Blamey – excellent standard guide, available in French version locally, pub. Delachaux et Niestlé.
'La Grande Flore Illustrée des Pyrénées', by M. Saule, Pub. Milan Presse – the affordable nec plus ultra, B & W sketches only, but a masterpiece.
There are many other beginners' books available locally.