Tuesday 11 March 2014

Bird walk

This morning, I took advantage of having wifi in the apartment to install the Android app which streams BBC Radio programmes. It meant I could listen to the Radio Four Today programme while eating breakfast, as I routinely do at home, for the first time during my stay here. Former Chief Rabbi Lionel Sachs made a bright cheerful return to 'Thought for the Day' after a post retirement spell in NYC. He truly is a great evangelist for God. Linda popped in for a chat about Holy Week plans. Then I went through my liturgy archive and found some texts I'd like to use on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. After lunch, I went for a walk along the noisy coast path alongside the N340 towards El Faro and took some photos of a small flock of Dunlin feeding.
Also there was a solitary Cormorant presiding handsomely over the waves from an off shore rock.
On my way to the shore, and on my return, I saw several flocks of small birds black and white wings, with flashes of yellow underneath, flying about between tree and grass cover searching for insects. Possibly they were finches. Then a pair of larger brightly coloured birds flew out of a tree and headed to the nearby golf course. They may have been bee-eaters, a characteristic bird of the region. They over-winter in Africa, but the first of them reappear on the Costa del Sol mid-March. They were very distinctive and caught me by surprise so I didn't get a photo. Nearer the back garden gate, I snapped this character, a lonely warbler?
As Winter gives way to Spring an increasing number of birds will return here or pass through on their way north. It promises to be an interesting time.

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