Exploring the hamlets of Vallouise and Pelvoux

So what is the identity of this sun bird? It's the royal, or golden, eagle of course. Although it is telling the time here, in the surrounding natural landscape it hunts marmots. But what becomes of it in winter when the marmots hibernate deep in their burrows? It's a lean time. It has to make do with a hare or ptarmigan, and in particular the carcasses of chamois which have not survived the winter or have been killed in an avalanche.  

With its strident calls, this little acrobat gets itself noticed. With a blue-grey back and a black stripe over its eyes, it works its way down the tree trunks upside down in search of insects. It nests in old woodpecker nests but if the diameter of the entrance is too large it reduces it with mud, to protect its young from predators. Hence its French name torchepot (a reference to edging the rim of a vessel). 

Even in winter, the ash can be recognised from its large black leaf buds. The leaves are compound. A pioneer species that grows easily, the ash has long been used by man for everyday needs: its foliage was used to feed cattle and its hard, flexible wood was used to make a variety of objects such as tool handles. Its French name frêne often appears in local place names too: Freissinières (frêne noir - black ash), Le Freney etc. Evidence of its historical importance to human communities.. 

On the damp banks of the stream, hidden in the grass, is a snail with a beautiful golden brown shell speckled with brown, decorated with a dark spiral stripe. It has a black body. The alpine copse snail is relatively rare and, as its name suggests, it is found in the Alps. It is a sub-species of the ordinary copse snail, which is present across Europe.

The path is edged with large clumps of a plant with purple flowers, the wood cranesbill. The leaves are palmate and divided into 5 to 7 incised and indented lobes, This common plant grows in meadows and cool woods. The «geraniums» we see on balconies are in fact pelargoniums, distant cousins originally from South Africa and cultivated for ornamental purposes.

Une des particularités du cours d'eau qui draine toute la vallée, du glacier blanc à la Durance, est qu'à chaque confluence, il change de nom ! D'abord torrent du Glacier Blanc, il devient torrent de Saint-Pierre, puis torrent d'Ailefroide, Gyr et enfin Gyronde ! Jusqu'au 12ème siècle, il se nommait sur toute sa longueur Gérendoine, nom provenant d'une racine très ancienne signifiant « rivière des rochers » . Puis il a changé de nom plusieurs fois, et la Gyronde ne représente plus qu'un fragment de la rivière.

No, we're not in south-west France where the Gironde flows! The Gyronde (spelt with a «y»!) is the river that flows between Vallouise and L'Argentière-La Bessée, where it flows into the Durance. It originates from the Gyr and Onde mountain streams which merge in Vallouise.

The hamlet of Grand Parcher stands on the alluvial cone formed by the Grand Parcher mountain stream, and on either side of it. It is made up of several old houses and the seventeenth-century chapel of Saint-André. It has two sun dials painted onto its walls. One of them bears the saying HORA INCERTA CUNTIS, ULTIMA MULTIS (This hour is uncertain for all, it is the last hour for many). Food for thought!

On the edge of the path grows a tall plant with quite wide and smooth leaves, and completely round whitish or very pale blue flower clusters. This is the great globe thistle, a relatively rare plant. It is a cousin of the southern globe thistle which can be seen everywhere in dry places. This one is smaller and has clusters of bluish flowers and spiny leaves. 

The smooth snake is a non-venomous colubrid snake, which adopted the bad idea of resembling the venomous vipera aspis, which has led to it being killed indiscriminately. We must remember, however, that both the vipera aspis and the smooth snake are protected species. It can be recognised in particular by the black stripe over its eye and on its round pupil (which helps to distinguish colubrids from vipers, which have a slit pupil). 

Le sol de la pinède est tapissé d’un sous-arbrisseau rampant aux feuilles persistantes, ovales et vernissées. Au printemps, le raisin d’ours donne de jolies petites fleurs en forme de grelot, blanches bordées de rose. Elles vont donner des baies rouges, comestibles mais farineuses. Les ours les apprécient, d’où son nom. C’est une plante bien adaptée à la sécheresse. 

A strange insect, part butterfly, part dragonfly, with large black antennae, transparent wings tinted with yellow or white and with well-defined veining, flies over the meadow during the hottest part of the day. It is the owly sulphur. Owlflies are members of the Neuroptera (net-winged) order and are cousins of ants and lacewings. They are predators of small insects, flies in particular. 

Stream correction dams have been built by RTM (Mountain Land Rehabilitation), a branch of the National Forestry Agency. The purpose of these structures is to limit erosion and mountain stream flooding. The RTM has been in existence for a long time, set up in the late nineteenth century. At that time, the slopes where much more sparsely wooded than they are today, and erosion was a very significant problem.

Dans la forêt, on peut souvent admirer le lys martagon. Cette superbe plante a de grandes fleurs pendantes aux pétales recourbés, roses mouchetés de pourpre, laissant apparaître les étamines orangées. Ses feuilles sont allongées et verticillées. Elle pousse dans les prairies et bois frais et, bien que  commune ici, est rare dans bien des régions françaises. Sa cueillette est d’ailleurs interdite ou réglementée.

A large plant grows along the canal side; a sort of thistle although it is not spiky: the Montpellier thistle. Its oval, pointed leaves are edged with large, stiff but non-spiky cilia. Its flowers are pink. In France, it is only found in the Alps and the Pyrenees and a few departments in the south. Associated with wet areas, this species has become rare in many regions because of damage to its habitat. 

This is a hot, west-exposed slope with rocky ground. The plant life reflects this situation: the narrow-leaved lavender and acanthus-leaved thistle grow here. The latter looks like a large sun with its very big flower head which quickly turns golden and its leaves radiating out around it. It often used to be hung on house doors... but much better to leave it lighting up the stony meadows!

Irrigation of meadows and private gardens; preservation of traditions; the promotion of social contact through collective canal maintenance operations carried out by local people; development of canals to create trails for tourists and locals... The canals have fulfilled a variety of roles, hence the benefit of conserving and maintaining them. 

Tandis que les kayak voguent sur les flots (!), d'autres en dessous s'accrochent ... Les larves de certains insectes sont aquatiques, employant toutes sortes de stratégies pour ne pas se laisser emporter par le courant : forme aplatie pour se glisser sous les galets, crochets, ventouses, filets de soie pour s'y fixer … Ce stade larvaire peut durer plusieurs années pour une vie d'adulte ailé très courte, parfois juste le temps de se reproduire …

On the right, a stand of aspens with smooth, greenish trunks and rounded, crenelated leaves take on magnificent colours in autumn. The stem, or petiole, of aspen leaves is flat and twisted, so it can be caught by the slightest breeze making the foliage «quake» hence its common name, the quaking aspen.

Perched on a rock in the middle of the river, a squat bird with a short tail, brown with a large white bib, bobs up and down with his tail in the air. He then dives and only reappears a few moments later. This is how this bird hunts, diving into the water and then walking against the current along the river bed searching for aquatic insect larvae, small crustaceans or small fish, lifting pebbles with its beak to dislodge them.  

This small wood is a fragment of the riparian forest: natural forest growing adjacent to a body of water. Reduced everywhere due to urbanisation, this type of forest is made up of alder, willow and oak, and also poplar, birch and aspen, among others

But what's the angler angling for? The brown trout of course! This is the mountain fish par excellence, with a streamlined body to withstand the current more efficiently and light brown skin speckled with black and red. It lives in cold, oxygen-rich waters. 

Perché sur un bloc au milieu de la rivière, un oiseau trapu, à la queue courte, brun avec une grande bavette blanche, se balance de haut en bas avec la queue dressée. Puis il plonge et ne réapparaît que quelques instants plus tard. Cet oiseau chasse ainsi, plongeant puis marchant à contre-courant au fond de l'eau en quête de larves aquatiques d’insectes, de petits crustacés ou petits poissons, soulevant les galets avec son bec pour les déloger.   

Some strange creatures are moving jerkily over the surface of the water: Gerrises, insects related to bedbugs. Like a true insect, they have six legs and they «skate» across the water using their intermediate and hind legs which are covered in hairs to make them water-resistant. They are carnivorous and anything on the water surface, dead or alive, is good to eat! They catch their prey with the forelegs, sucking up the juices with their strong proboscis!

La grenouille rousse s'adapte à l'altitude et peut profiter de l'eau jusqu'à 2800 m. Elle est capable de subsister à la rudesse hivernale en se mettant à l'abri du gel sous un rocher, une souche... Cet amphibien est la grenouille la plus commune en montagne et est reconnaissable à son masque chocolat qui met en valeur ses yeux d'or. À noter, la croissance des têtards est lente, ce n'est qu'au bout de deux ans qu'ils deviennent adultes.

Vallouise Pelvoux is a municipality within the Parc National des Écrins. Renovated in 2014, the Park Centre ("Maison du Parc") houses the offices of the local Park staff and has a spacious visitor reception area. It offers a permanent interactive exhibition inviting discovery of the territory and its heritage features, a temporary exhibition space on the upper floor and an audiovisual room (screenings and talks). It is currently in the process of applying for the "Tourisme et Handicap" tourism and disability label. Admission is free and so, too, are most of the activities in offer.