a quickie at the Guadalhorce

I hadn't intended going down to the Guadalhorce again until tomorrow when I should have been with Bob Wright and his group but circumstances beyond my control have intervened - my apologies to his group.

Sooo, when Xulio, who is from Galicia, rang to say that he was down with his wife, Esther, and could we meet, it didn't take much thought to agree. And a very pleasant couple of hours we had along with mutual friend Salva García, an ardent gull ring reader and for whom none gull species hardly exist.

Best birds first in this very brief report: 3 male Garganeys (lovely) and a female; at least 15 male White-headed Ducks in a high state of hormonally induced excitement (an important number if one remembers that the Guadalhorce hosts about 30% of the total Andalucian population); a single Tree Pipit, a pair of female/immature weavers, probably the Black-headed, starting to build a nest and an immaculate male Black-eared Wheatear of the black-throated form.

WARNING: the dreaded TICK season has started, it was early last year and even earlier this, so examine trousers regularly, remember they can be seen more easily against paler colours. And while there are flocks/herds/swarms in the sunshine, as the sun fell there was, at a conservative estimate, some 25 billion to the power 25 mosquitos in the air, some of which were hungry, and normally they never bite me.