The bellowing of the stags

In the end, we decided to postpone our return for a day. After all, there’s no real rush to get home. So, we returned to this mountain pass where we came two years ago to listen to the bellowing of the stags…

We left our Montagne Noire hill under an overcast sky. The view of the plain was still beautiful, but without the sun, the colors were a little duller. Normally, we were supposed to arrive in Andorra today, but since there is no emergency, and we are actually enjoying spending time with Marvin, we decided to take a little detour via the Col du Portel, between Foix and Massat, to listen to the bellowing of the stags.

We had been here before with the Tiny, and that’s where we heard the stags bellowing for the first time. So we arrived around 1 p.m. and, as soon as we switched the engine off, we heard the first stag, a few hundred meters from where we were installed, right on the pass… The weather was cloudy here too, and we were even in the clouds when we arrived (this seems to be a habit in the Pyrenees.. 😅). Then, in the afternoon, it cleared up a little… The clouds rose a little, and we were able to get a little glimpse of the magnificent view we have from this pass. This time, we probably won’t see Toulouse, but what we can see is already quite good…

Besides, the most important here is not really the view, but the stags! In the afternoon, we went for a short 3-hour walk in the forest, with stags bellowing all around, some closer, others further away. We were already happy with that when, on the way back, suddenly, there, barely 200m away, in a field that the ferns had not yet invaded, we saw a big male and two females! We stayed there, watching them, the two females eating quietly while the male was exhausting himself bellowing next to them, hoping that one or the other would be sensitive to these charms… Obviously, it was not going well…

Watch the video with the volume full on (otherwise, you won’t hear anything 😁)

So, here we are… not many photos today due to overcast weather (and the stags were still a little far away for the zoom of our iPhones), but it was a nice last stop, listening to the stags and, for the first time, seeing 3 of them at once!…

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While stag-spotting, as always, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.