September gently passed over my mountains, its balmy days giving leave for many of our familiar summer birds to depart on their southern passage to Africa. Only a few, foolhardy maybe, lingered and perhaps lulled into believing autumn would never arrive. After such a hot … Continue readingOctober in the mountains
Have you ever had that prickly feeling at the base of your neck, when your hairs stand up and you are in wonder? It is a kind of out of body experience, where your spirit dances with joy and you can feel with your eyes. … Continue readingWild Serranía de Ronda – July Field Meeting
I’ve always denied having a birding ‘patch’, but it’s gradually dawned on me that the terrace of my house in Alcala de los Gazules is a patch, albeit an extremely small one. I’m being a little disengenuous here since the terrace has an 180° view … Continue readingTerrace Temptations
We all know that Andalucía is a great place to be a birder. But there are some misguided fools, who live here or visit in order to whack a small white ball, into a very small hole, on very big golf courses. I try to … Continue readingMy Golf Club
How quickly we become blasé about the birds we once considered exotic! When we first arrived in Andalucía I got Tom (my husband) to abandon the car in Arahal high street for me to jump out and take a photo of a White Stork on … Continue readingSeville Province – Our garden and the sky above it
The map below shows the location of my local patch between Fuengirola and Benalmádena, about 20 kilometres westwards of Málaga along the A7 autovía. It sits on the lower slopes of the foothills of Sierra de Mijas, its higher, northern edge being 200 metres above … Continue readingHigueron – Malaga Province
North of Ronda lies my village of Olvera, my local patch; from here I travel west to Campillos and Fuente de Piedra, east to Arcos de la Frontera, north to Osuna and south to Montejaque. Olvera is a large village with a population of approx. … Continue readingOlvera – Cadiz Province
I am lucky enough to live near the pretty white village of Frigiliana which overlooks the sea from the foothills of the Axarquia, a region of high sierras, to the East of Malaga. As a boy I remember reading my “Observer’s Book of Birds” and … Continue readingOverlooking the sea from the foothills of Axarquia
La Rondeña sits on a ridge in the Sierra Cabrera, a range of hills some fifty kilometres north east of Almeria city. Patchwork, it’s always been a facet of birding that I’ve enjoyed. There’s something rather satisfying about working your own area on a regular … Continue readingA Patch in the Sun
It was when a birder commented on one of my photographs that they would not have associated a Crested Tit Lophophanes cristatus with Marbella, that I started to think about the wonderful birdlife that we are blessed with here on the Costa del Sol. Most … Continue readingEvery birder should have one, but Marbella?
