After a four month drought it’s finally started to rain,
sadly too late for many southbound birds who missed the winged ants, and had to
make do with other insects fortunately plentiful because of the remaining ponds
from our very wet spring. So the
Flycatchers stayed very little this year, mainly pied, Spotted flycatcher only
spotted a couple of times. There were
lots of Whinchats and Redstarts around
from mid-September but most appear to have moved on. The Wheatear have held on until mid-October,
which goes to show there must still have been plenty of food for them.
Our village was filled with House martins for several days on
their southerly migration, stopping off to rest and refuel, catching small
insects in flight with superb agility.
What a privilege it was to be able to watch them from my window!
Upstream at Puente del Congosto on the River Tormes we were
treated to hundreds of Housemartin feeding on the church wall and later mobbing
a Hobby who tried in vain to gain height over them. The Blue Rock thrush showed
itself peeping from the castle tower and later on a rooftop: such a special
bird, so very beautiful with it’s fine vermiculated feathers.
 |
| Blue Rock thrush
You never know what you might see looking down from the
medieval bridge to the river: Common sandpiper, Cormorant, Grey and white
wagtail, Kingfisher and Crag martin were just a few of the locals recently.
 
And around there are the usual residents such as Black
Redstart, Corn bunting and Chaffinch.
   |
On a walk nearby we came across two interesting creatures: Eresus kollari the Ladybird spider and the Iberian or Bosca’s newt Lissitriton boscai. A
tiny creature, and endemic to Western Iberia.
 |
| Eresus kollari |
 | ||||
| Lissitriton boscai
During the summer one hot
evening there I saw a strange looking Melodious warbler, with a very big beak
and bright orange legs. Having showed
the photo to my ringer friends and other birders some feel it isn’t a Melodious
and others that it is. Anyone out there have an idea?
    
 We’ve had some interesting visitors on our local reservoir shoreline recently: Dunlin and Curlew sandpiper together with the more usual Little ringed plover.   
The muddy surface also
witnesses countless prints of mammals: wild boar, fox and badger all making an
appearance.
  wild boar tracks
We had
a look under a nest of the now absent Black Kite to see if there were traces of
their food. Not surprisingly, we found
mainly fish bones. They are such good
fishers! We were more surprised to see
that in the same tree, above and to the side of the nest and actually hanging
from the underside of it were several Spanish sparrow nests. Taking advantage of the protection they might
gain from close vecinity to such a redoubtable hunter? It would be interesting to observe them and
see if they actually do coincide in their breeding.
  
A garden warbler flew into the
house through an open window and took a few bumps trying to get out through the
closed ones. Eventually I managed to
scoop it up and set it on the window sill to recover. At first I was quite concerned for it but
after about 15 minutes it perked up and flew off.
Songthrush and meadow pipits
have arrived and the ‘quita meriendas’ or Colchicum montanum is out in full
bloom. Its local name (meaning snack
remover) relates to it coming out at the beginning of autumn, when the days
shorten, and so for the shepherds and farmers the late afternoon snack
(merienda) is replaced by an early evening meal.
  
Colchicum
montanum
The local vultures are back
after breeding and can often be seen circling or waiting patiently to feed on a cow
carcass.
    |
