Montenegro this morning

On next door's TV aerial - a greenfinch? - or maybe a goldfinch, that's what we usually see here.

 

Stripey lizard near the veg patch:

 

A male oriole working on his nest:

 

More of a beep....

Not much to look at here,  in fact totally dark as there wasn't a moon last night, but this is what we are listening to as we fall asleep.

More of a beep than a too-whit  too-whoo!

When we first came here and heard this, we thought it was one of our mobiles needing to be charged up but having consulted the bird book, we think it's a Scops owl as it's call is described as  "monotonous and repeated"  usually heard at night.  Last night there was at least 1 other owl calling back and having listened to this again,  you can just about hear the other one in between our louder owl's beeps.

Beautiful bird song, but what is it?

All day every day this little bird sits in either the mulberry or the pine tree, singing its little heart out.  When it's in the mulberry it's backlit by the sun so I can't get a photo of it and when it's in the pine tree it's hidden by the branches so still no photo.

This afternoon, I put my camera on the fence post and left it to run on video for a minute to capture the song.  Please have a listen, there isn't much to see apart from the branches swaying in the breeze, but if you know which bird it is, then please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

Someone must know what it is!

Got some photo's now and we think it is a chaffinch ...

Bluetits

We are in the lucky position of seeing lots of birds around here, from the usual sparrow to the more exotic looking hoopoo, but don't often see blue tits.  However, yesterday afternoon  we  had a flurry of blue tits - there may be a proper name for seeing lots all at once - a gaggle is geese I know, maybe someone out there knows the name for seeing about 12 blue tits all at once???

They were in and out of the jasmine, grape vines, pear tree and the olives so fast it was hard to focus for a photo, but John managed to get this one reasonably well.  We think they were eating the last of the dried unpicked grapes, not sure what was so tasty in the jasmine although it's in full bloom so maybe they were eating the buds or some bugs!

The eagles have landed.

Although this isn't the best of photos, it's not for lack of trying or time waiting.  Two Bonelli's eagles came over again today and after a while drifting on the breeze, they landed in  a tree about 300 metres away.  I got the binoculars to watch them while John got a camera and suitable lens....and we waited for them to do something.

Hopefully they would fly away, not that we wanted them too really,  only so we could get pictures of the amazing wingspan and colours but I  think they were on a long,  lazy  lunch  break or something as we waited.....   and waited......   and waited. 

Eventually John went in to finish some previously started work while I man-ed (or womaned) the camera.  The sun went in, the clouds gathered, I got rather chilly in my strappy t-shirt and then with no warning, no flapping on the wings or anything, they went.   They just dropped off the tree, down into the shade of the hillside before I could get a photo.

So after all that time, this is the best we took.

A forgotten photo

A few weeks ago when I was out picking figs,  I saw a bird's nest in the tree.   Not any old nest but - we think - it's a nest made by the Golden Orioles.  They make nests that hang down from the branch, sort of suspended in the air.  It's  quite an intricate construction involving lots of shredded paper and other unidentifiable things, but all locally sourced!!

The Orioles have all headed off south now for the winter sun, and have been replaced by the magpies.  They seem to roost - and possibly nest -  in the same  trees.  Having said that, we've never seen a baby magpie so maybe that happens elsewhere.  Need to look in my bird book for that information.

Birds on a wire.

There are lots of birds around here, especially at the moment as it's breeding season  and they haven't yet left for their warmer winter homes.   Some we hear rather than see, such as the Hoopoo,  some we hear and see flying about such as the Golden Oriole - such a lovely song.  And then there are the Swallows and Bee-eaters which are always flying and swooping around in the valley behind the house.  They land on the phone line which runs up from Yator to Connie and Micha's cortijo  and from the comfort of my sunbed by the pool, I took these pictures yesterday afternoon.

We were given a copy of this book about 5 years ago by some walkers who stopped for a chat and happened to have a spare book, then we were given an updated version more recently.  We refer to it quite often to identify birds that we've seen  although we usually need a good photo to check colours and markings to make sure.

The "road" to Yegen

We went out today for a walk to Yegen with Mariano and Sigrun - she's house sitting for neighbours - and then on to a few places for drinks and tapas. Luckily I went in my wellies and John and Mat had boots on, as did Sigrun. Mariano went in shoes, even though he knew it was rocky and likely to be soggy underfoot. Only 1 photo of him about to slip over, kept that for his family, it looks like he's dancing!

If anything, the road up is worse than the road down to Yator in that there are more boulders. Soil and rubble can be bull-dozed out of the way, or used to fill ruts and holes and ravines, but boulders are more difficult. There are places where the edge of the road has collapsed and it's extremely narrow and with crumbly edges, there are places where you have to clamber over soggy soil and plants, places where the rocks have collapsed underneath the outside edge and washed away the soil (didn't go too close but we could see it from higher up around the bend) waterfalls and streams we've never seen before ("we" includes Mariano too - he has been coming here all his life and this is all new to him) ruts/ravines caused by rushing water....and then there are stretches which are relatively normal!

We had an interesting walk into Yegen, and then met a man carrying a falcon - not something you'd expect on a Sunday (or any) afternoon!

PS: Yes, I know, for some reason this uploads the photos in reverse order so what I write about first, comes last as a picture. Still, what do you expect for free!

PPS: J has found another blog by a man in Cadiar...they had either brown or no water the day before yesterday, yesterday the supply was cut off by the Ayuntamiento to prevent disease so everyone's having to buy bottled water to drink or catch rain water to use for flushing the loo. The road to Torvizcon is virtually shut, down to half a lane in places as the landslides have landslides on them!

the robin

this is all new to me so trying to get 2 photos in 1 blog doesn't seem to work! maybe it will become clearer over time so meanwhile here are the robin pictures!

birds

we have been visited recently by a wagtail and even more recently by our robin - when I say our robin it's because one or maybe a pair come every year - so we assume it's the same ones again. The wagtail certainly isn't shy, he potters along the edge of the pool, catching insects that are around, the robin has been much more shy, hiding in the trimmings of the olive treee.