Meet our new neighbour Eva. She lives in our stairwell and is a blue-eyed ensign wasp (Evania appendigaster). She parasites the oothecas (egg capules) of cockroaches – a huge problem in Barcelona in the heat, humidity and so many restaurants. We love Eva.
Author Archives: nick.iberianature
Basque whalers
Official stamp of the Basque border town of Hondarribia, dated 1335, showing the hunting of a Right Whale (Ballena de los vascos in Spanish). With local whales decimated by the end of the Middle Ages, Basque whalers found new population off Newfoundland, reaching these territories by the early C16th or even before.
Image Wikipedia
Basque-Icelandic pidgin
First page of 18th century Basque-Icelandic dictionary. A Basque-Icelandic pidgin was spoken between locals and Basque whalers from ~1600 including the well-known expression “Fenicha for ju” meaning F**k you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque%E2%80%93Icelandic_pidgin
Wild garlic
The flower of the wild garlic is a beautiful thing. This in Vall de Lillet, Catalan Pyrenees.
Ajo/All in Spanish and Catalan, and Baratxuri in Basque.
Basque squirrels
Katagorri, a lovely word in Basque for squirrel. (Also Urtxintx)
Ardilla in Spanish, Esquirol in Catalan. EsquÃo in Galicia
📷Fischer.H (Wikipedia)
Many years ago, an old anarchist bookseller from the Raval assured me that squirrel was the most delicate meat he had ever eaten. Nowadays, it is better to let them play in the trees.
There’s a song from the 1960s:
Nik ere nahi nuke
Izan urtxintxak bezala
Hain gora, hain trebe,
Izaiteko libre
I, too, would like To be like the squirrels— So high up, so agile— To be free.
Aitor, a friend on social media, a Basque doctor commented:
It’s a song from my childhood, when our language was banned, Franco ruled with an iron fist and freedom was to be achieved yet. We wanted to be like squirrels. A song for children with a deep meaning
Monday in the Sun
Lunes al Sol starring Javier Barden. This powerful 2002 drama shows how unemployment affects men left jobless by the closure of Vigo’s shipyards in Galicia. Bardem’s later film El Buen Patrón is told from the opposite perspective of a boss, who only concern is himself.. It’s even more damning on effects of capitalism on human beings.
Lobster pots in Galicia
Lobster pots, Bueu harbour near Vigo. I miss Galicia and the smell of the Atlantic, stronger and fresher from that here in the Mediterranean.
Whaling station in Galicia
Some time ago I sneaked inside the abandoned whaling station at Cangas de Morrazo run by the Massó family tinning company. There are remains of another small whaling factory in the CÃes’ southernmost island.
This was more or less where in 1980 Galicia’s and Spain’s whaling industry ended. The factory is in a right mess. It would make a great site for a museum to the history of that evocative, cruel and sorry business.
1482 map of Spain
1482 map of Hispania, the kingdoms of Granada and Navarre still hanging on. Castile and Aragón including the Principality of Catalonia still separate entities for another 125 years, latter including Roussillon. The geography was based on the work of the 2nd Century CE work by Ptolemy.
Peregrine falcons in Sagrada Familia
Peregrine falcon behind GaudÃ’s trencadÃs mosiac and chicks May 2026 in the Sagrada Familia. Kindly sent to me by Eduard Durany of Galanthus Natura.
A total of 318 chicks have hatched in the Barcelona metropolitan area since Eduard started the reintroduction programme with the council in 2003.
