Wildlife

Golden Oriole

Seen today right outside our living room window.  Not often Spotted, although frequently heard.



The Magpies Foster Children 

One day, sitting out on our terrace,  we heard the most awful screetching and frantic flying backwards and forwards and some unidentified birds.  Well some of the birds were magpies, we could tell that, but what was chasing them.  Eventually, and with the use of our bird books, we identified the birds as Great Spotted Cuckoos (chicks).  The magpies were their unwitting foster parents and were being harrassed for food by their unofficial offspring.  Each year around the end of March beginning of April the adult Cuckoos arrive to look for the nests of the unwitting Magpies in which to lay their eggs.  By June the young cuckoos are chasing their foster parents around begging for food.  This year (2012) the first sighting of an adult cuckoo was 9th February.

Great Spotted Cuckoo in the canes at the bottom of the garden

The case of the fox versus the snake
One early afternoon, alerted again by the screetching of the magpies, I made my way towards the noise.  Deep down in the rambla I could see frantic movements.  Using the binoculars I made out a fox - no two foxes.  The larger of these two foxes was battling with rather a large snake.  The battle lasted quite a while until the snake was finally overcome.  The large fox then spent the best part of three hours dining, and chasing away the small fox and a host of hungry magpies until eventually trotting off with a take-away meal for later. 
Not seen any snakes since then and the foxes also now seem to have left the area I expect much to the relief of the resident rabbits.

 
These Little Piggies went down the Rambla
The magpie warning system was in operation yet again.  I went across the garden to look in the direction of the noise, taking the binoculars with me.  The commotion was only a cat in a tree ... but whilst I was looking through the binoculars I saw movement on the bank above the opposite side of the rambla.  Thinking it would be a fox and cubs I was amazed to see a female Jabali (wild pig) and four babies climbing the bank to go foraging.   I fully expected this to be a one-off sighting but went to look at approximately the same time the next night, and they appeared again.  For the next five nights the same happened.  On the sixth night Angel brought his daughter to look for them, and guess what?  Right no Jabali.  A few nights later I saw them again but that was the last sighting I  had of them.


Kestrels v. Little Owls v. Green Woodpecker
If you come here and hear loud noises in the early evening and early morning it is likely to be the calls of the resident Kestrels or Little Owls, or even the yaffle of a green woodpecker.  In late April or early May you may also hear the strange voice of Red Necked Nightjars as the light fades in the evening.  If you think someones burglar alarm keeps going off, it´s probably them.



Kestrel on garden  fence