View from the sierra

It was mercadillo time this morning, and I went out and shopped conveniently there for fruit and veg. I was struck by the empty spaces in the lower of the two sections of the market, which is next to our urbanizacion - some stall holders not doing business? I wondered. But when I walked to the upper section, it was extended the full length of the car park, not half the length as was previously the case. Card driving visiting shoppers are now directed further uphill to where there's a field set aside for parking a couple of hundred metres beyond the upper limit of the market. Dreadful if you have heavy bags to carry back uphill in the hot sun, but then ninety percent of the market is given over to clothes shoes and bags.

Determined to do something different today, I headed uphill for my afternoon walk, through the urbanizacion de San Juan Capistrano, to take the footpath to take me up and beyond the houses into the Parque Natural de Almijara. There's a narrow wooded valley which climbs right up to a ridge, and the path continues down into the rio Chillar valley to the south. I noticed, along the path and between some of the houses several apricot trees covered in ripening fruit. There was plenty of bird life too. I came across a chaffinch feeding its young fledgling, no longer in the nest, but parked on a branch where its parents could fly to and fro more easily.

At the start of the walk I saw three brightly coloured birds, which might have been hoopoes or bee eaters, and caught just one in flight below me from where I was standing on the hillside. Without a bird book to check, this remains a mystery.

It may not be a great photo but it captured an exciting moment. There were and lots of different butterflies around too, so much easier to photograph.

I climbed for about three quarters of an hour, up the steep and narrow gully, to about 400m above sea level, before turning back. The path must carry rain water off the mountainside at other times, and would be pretty treacherous if the weather took a sudden turn for the worse. It was a very pleasant hike on this occasion, and one I'd be pleased to repeat.