My arrival at Fuente de Piedra on 3 May was greeted by a group of black-looking birds feeding close together at the edge of the shallow pool on the left side of the entrance road. During frequent visits to this Natural Park from 2003 onwards, I had never seen a Glossy Ibis until April 2016, … More Down-turned bills on the up
The evening sky over Antequera, and over most towns and villages in Andalucía, is now crowded with fast, aerobatic and noisy entertainers with distinctive scimitar-shaped wings – this design is almost unique to this family of birds. Swifts, recently returned from their wintering areas in sub-Saharan Africa, begin arriving here in April and numbers continue … More Chasers and screamers – summer is here
Little rain had fallen since our last visit to the lagoons at Fuente de Piedra in March and by early May evaporation of some of the huge amount of water that had fallen during the previous November’s storms had led to a fall in water levels. This left some of the lagoons shallow with damp … More Waders on the move
On Sunday 17 March, another gloriously sunny and warm day, we decided to revisit one of our favourite haunts for lunch – Venta las Delicias in Villanueva del Rosario, in the foothills of the Sierra del Jobo mountain range just off the Malaga-Granada road. We arrived there in time to occupy a table in the … More Return to Venta las Delicias
On our March visit to Andalucía we learned that November 2018 had produced torrential rain in parts of southern Spain and the lagoons, where we and other bird and broader wildlife enthusiasts enjoy the natural world, proved to be at their highest water levels for years. Other signs of the deluge were apparent in the … More Water and waterbirds return to Andalusian lagoons, with some crakey additions
In my early childhood (probably in the 1950s) my parents took me to the local cinema see a wonderful film “Where no vultures fly”. This film was about the control of a then extremely serious and highly infectious disease of domestic cattle in Africa – Rinderpest. This virus disease had decimated cattle herds and caused … More “Where no vultures fly”: Rinderpest and Diclofenac
About 5 km east of Lucena, and close to the small town of Cabra, in northern Andalucía (Cordoba Province), lies an elevated area of limestone mountains with verdant valleys, some of which are devoted to grazing of cattle, sheep and goats and, in other parts of these sierras, olives. This area is part of the … More A spring visit to the Sierras Subétticas
When Andy Paterson and I arrived at Fuente de Piedra on Saturday 12 May 2018, we were astonished to find the car park full and over-spilling to the extent that it occupied both sides of the entrance road. In addition to the wealth of birds mentioned in my previous blog, the visitor centre and the … More World migratory bird day, 12 May 2018
After several years of drought in southern Spain, the 2017-2018 winter, especially later during the season, brought huge downpours of rainfall. On my arrival on 9 May the countryside had a distinctly green hue and cereal crops already sported ears of ripening seed, with a few fields already beginning to turn brown. Many wildflowers were … More Water returns to Andalusia’s lagoons
Mid-April saw me back in Andalucía for a week. Predictably my first venture into the countryside was to Fuente de Piedra, one of my favourite birding haunts. On 18 April a vicious but warmish wind howled in from the south, piling huge clouds upon the mountain tops to the south of Antequera. The mass of … More Spring fever in Andalucía
