The Bee-eaters are back!

Wednesday

First morning of their holiday and having arrived in the late evening the first opportunity for our son to see our house and the surrounding vistas.  No sooner had we breakfasted and taken a walk along the terrace to take a look at the sea than we heard that unmistakable call of the Bee-eater.  You would hardly call it a song, let alone the "voice of a Nightingale;" more a Thekla Lark with a stomach ache was how I first described it  upon arrival out here in Spain and that still seems to best fit what I look forward to hearing about this time every year, somewhere between the last week of March and first week of April.

Bee-eater  Abejaruco Europeo  Merops apiaster

Wonderful and so please that we could welcome our birds back at the same time as our family.

Then it was off down to Torre del Mar to walk the promenade and town centre before a Menu del Dia and back to Casa Collado.  By the time we got back we had also added Cattle and Little Egret, both Thekla  and Crested Lark, Stonechat, Collared Dove, Monk Parakeet, Barn Swallow, House Martin, Spotless Starling, Serin and Goldfinch.  Not bad when you think  that five of the above are new birds for a British resident and many will have not picked up either Little Egret a or Stonechat.  Come the week-end I think a drive up the mountain to Ventas de Zafarraya might be in order so that we can add Black Wheatear, Crag martin, Rock Bunting, possible Alpine Swift and maybe even a Griffon Vulture and/or Short-toed Eagle if we are lucky.  We shall see.

Check out the accompanying website at http://www.birdingaxarquia.weebly.com for the latest sightings, photographs and additional information.