Hoopoe hunting again

It was raining lightly when I got up this morning, the first day of rain in the month that I've been here. Too hot for a rain coat, but I remembered seeing a brightly coloured golf brolly in the house, and soon hunted it down for my walk down to the Church Shop to celebrate the midweek Eucharist for seven people. After a chat over coffee, a few special items to shop for on the walk home, this time carrying the umbrella, no longer needed.

By late afternoon, the clouds had cleared, so I walked up through the Capistrano urbanizacion to the track that goes up into the Parque Natural, to the place where I'd previously seen the hoopoes, in the hope of getting better photos. I certainly saw the pair that live in the first section of the trail up behind the houses, and watched them flee ahead of me, flying close to the ground with their evasive swooping motion. Hard for predators to grab, just has hard for camera autofocus to adjust to adapt to the background terrain quick enough. Even using the multiple shot option I was unsuccessful. 

Still, the exercise and the effort of getting there, watching and waiting, was its own reward. I saw several black caps and heard tits, backbirds, assorted doves and pigeons, and collected a good few midge bites for my trouble. The prize for waiting was the sight of a goldfinch feeding in a patch of dry grass, picking seeds out of a smallhead of dry grass.

It stayed where it was, oblivious to my presence and didn't fly away, so I was able to get close enough for some pleasing photos.

 It's great having time to do this. If only I was quicker off the mark, readying my camera for action!

When I was checking the identification of this bird on the internet, I was presented with a picture and description in Spanish, from which I learned that the Spanish for Goldfinch is Jilguero - it just happens to be the name of the street where Church House is located.