Étang et la plage

Étang de Canet is a salt  lagoon with a cluster of fishermen’s huts  made from plaited reeds. The local cat is strangely welcoming viewing from aloft !

 

This is a  protected environment with 300 species of bird. Today, winds from the north west making walking and certainly photography difficult, but egrets, grebes, one cormorant and black headed gulls were managing the climate better than humans. Atriplex halimus and tamarisk form the scrubby twiggy vegetation with types of samphire covering the ground. Blocks of Juncus  give secondary height and shelter for breeding places. Canigou, the most beautiful backcloth . . .

 To the beach, across the road that splits the two environments . . .

Fishing and installations made from the driftwood of branches, trunks, man made dead wood placed by the waves way back on the beachline. The wood looked like bones – quite elegant and wonderfully organic.

An installation – interesting visually . . .

and a remark, equally evocative: ‘I suppose somewhere across there is Italy’

DIstance does not make you falter

Now, arriving in magic, flying –

And finally, insane foe the light,

You are the butterfly and you are gone.

 And so long as you have not experienced

This: to die, and so to grow,

You are  only a troubled guest

On this dark earth.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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