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French Pyrenees 6 – 13 September 2017 *

Stunning scenery and mountain wildlife

For a combination of mountain views, flowers, butterflies and birds, the Pyrenees take some beating. Spectacular cirques, flower-filled meadows and soaring vultures; it lends itself to our mixed natural history style.

Many Honeyguiders know the Spanish Pyrenees: the French side is lusher, greener and the emphasis of this holiday is much more on the high Pyrenees. Access is easy to gentle walks or pottering in mountain pastures, up there with the isard – Pyrenean chamois – and marmots.

That most thrilling of birds, the lammergeier, is as easy to see here as anywhere; other birds of prey include griffon vultures, golden eagles and red kites. There are wallcreepers, though typically they are elusive. Red-billed and alpine choughs feed in the high meadows.

September also brings a flow of migrants. Countless numbers of birds are moving south and many rest and feed in Pyrenean valleys before crossing the high peaks. Weather conditions and luck will play their part in what we see: warblers, flycatchers and hirundines are the likeliest.


Gavarnie River and Cirque

Butterflies include Camberwell beauty, Queen-of-Spain fritillary and swallowtail, plus a selction of graylings, ringlets, blue, fritillaries and others.

We’ll search screes and short turf for alpine toadflax and gentians. Damp patches have grass-of-Parnassus and yellow mountain saxifrage.

It’s a good time of year to look for two specialised ‘herptiles’ of the area. Watercourses can hold Pyrenean brook newts and Pyrenean rock lizards scuttle around on rocks in the higher pastures.

alpine choughPyrenean brook newtApollo
Alpine chough and Pyrenean brook newt (Ivan Nethercoat); Apollo butterfly.

Birds

Highlights, in addition to those mentioned above, could include short-toed eagle, peregrine, black woodpecker, crag martin, water pipit, black-bellied dipper, crested tit and crossbill.

isards
Isards - Pyrenean chamois (Ivan Nethercoat)

Holiday details

Our base is the Hotel La Brèche de Roland, in Gèdre, just north of Gavarnie. It’s an attractive former 17th century family house in the village, looking out onto Brèche de Roland. The ‘brèche’ or breach is like a bite out of the top of the cirque, measuring 100m by 60m. Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, carved it, according to 11th century legend. He was leading the fight against the Moors and was trying to smash his magical sword Durandel to save it from enemy hands.

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.

Price: £1,450 per person in twin room for a full week (Wednesday to Wednesday).

Single room supplement: £160

En suite facilities

Flights: Scheduled Ryanair flight, Stansted to Lourdes

Deposit: £300

Maximum number (two leaders): 14
Troumouse Cirque
Troumouse cirque

Leaders

Chris Durdin is the driving force behind Honeyguide, running holidays since 1991. For many years he combined this with his work for the RSPB in Eastern England, often the Society’s spokesman, but has been concentrating on Honeyguide full-time since 2009, alongside writing a book about Norfolk’s cranes. He’s also a qualified soccer coach, for one son’s under 14 year group. As a naturalist, Chris is an all rounder. A co-leader depends on group size and diaries.

Ivan Nethercoat is learning & development manager for RSPB. He is a regular and well-travelled Honeyguide leader, including holidays in the Balearics, Crete and French Pyrenees. His degree, many moons ago, was in photography, and he is very happy to help any photographers in the group.

toward spain alpine chough apollo Escher's blue From the Col de Tourmalet Griffon from the cafe
Click on the thumbnails above for a selection of French Pyrenees photos by Ivan, from June 2011.

Conservation project

The lammergeier, or bearded vulture, is Europe’s scarcest bird of prey. Though never common, their decline prompted a partnership to tackle their protection and, as a result, numbers are now on the up. La Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO, the French Bird Protection League) is active here, with careful monitoring of the local population of the casseur d’os (bonebreaker), including tracking birds with radio transmitters; site protection in collaboration with other mountain users, such as climbers; and food provision in the breeding season.

More on the LPO's bearded vulture project (in French) here.

Lammergeiers — increasing in the French Pyrenees

1994 — 17 pairs
2004 — 24 pairs
2014 — 39 pairs

Lammergeier in flight (Ivan Nethercoat)

SUPPORTING

LPO

lammergeier in flight

The range has also expanded. In 1994, they were just in the western half of the French Pyrenees. Now they are found throughout the French Pyrenees. Source: LPO.

In addition there were 126 pairs in the Spanish Pyrenees, with the highest number (83 pairs) in the region of Aragón. Add in one pair in Andorra, and that's a total of 166 pairs in the Pyrenees.

Breche de Roland
The Brèche de Roland, the gash centre-left in this part of Gavarnie's Cirque, from Gèdre-Dessus (upper Gèdre).

* This is one day later than the brochure, because of a change in flight schedules.

For prices, see Holiday Details at the bottom of the page.

travel aware logo

FCO travel advice for France here.

Lammergeier

Lammergeier (Chris Knights)

Cardabelle

Cardabelle at Col de Tentes, September

Holiday reports

Our French Pyrenees holiday are either in June or September. Recent reports:

September 2017

June 2015

September 2014

June 2013

There are more French Pyrenees holiday reports on our holiday reports pages.

French Pyrenees photos

2017: from Ivan Nethercoat on Flickr and Chris Durdin on Facebook. Plant galls and fungi were a feature of the holiday expertly helped by group member Mervin Nethercoat: photos on Flickr.

Gallery: photos mostly by Chris Gibson.

Photos by Ivan Nethercoat, June 2013

Photos by Chris Durdin from September 2014 on Facebook and Ivan Nethercoat's on OneDrive.

Hôtel La Brèche de Roland in Gèdre. Click on the picture to see the hotel's website and a picture of our hosts, Odile and Philippe. Odile prepares table decorations from garden and wild flowers - click here to see pictures. The hotel is also on Facebook here.

Breche de Roland Hotel


grass of Parnassus

Grass of Parnassus, in flower in September

griffon vulture

Griffon vulture

view from 'dipper bridge' in Gèdre

View from 'dipper bridge' in Gèdre

Honeyguide web pages on the French Pyrenees

Pyrenean brook newt

Pyrenean brook newt and Pyrenean rock lizard

Welsh poppy

Welsh poppies


"The habitat is saturated with eagles" - a line (translated) from a French study (summary here) of golden eagles in the French Pyrenees near Ariège. The study found that the isard (Pyrenean chamois) was the eagles' main prey, by weight, and that their breeding productivity was low, linked to a relatively high density of pairs.

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Alpine marmots were re-introduced into the Pyrenees, from 1948, to reduce the predation pressure on isards by golden eagles, according to recent studies (here).

In successive introductions, about 500 marmots were released, and they now number in tens of thousands. Their impacts on the environment remain largely unstudied.

Chris Durdin

Chris Durdin

Ivan with camera

Ivan Nethercoat photographing Welsh poppies in the French Pyrenees.

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