Some years ago in January, I watched this beautiful animal in the Sierra de Andújar, Andalucia with the mobile stuck on a friend’s telescope. She was sitting, watching us, unimpressed, about 250 metres away. The next day another Iberian lynx, a male, crossed 100 metres from where we stood before vanishing into the scrub. Enchanted moments in the Sierra Morena.
Wildflowers ablaze one spring on the slopes near where George Orwell fought with the POUM militia in the Sierra de Alcubierre.
This lovely tree frog (Ranita meridional in Spanish) I spotted on Montjuïc, Barcelona. Orwell perhaps saw them on the Aragon front in 1937:
“Round the drinking-pool that served for the village mules I found exquisite green frogs the size of a penny, so brilliant that the young grass looked dull beside them”
We watched this grey heron (Spanish “garza real”; Catalan “bernat pescaire”) having a good old preen in the trees above Barcelona zoo. More than 100 wild pairs breed in the zoo every year, the largest urban heronry in Europe. They share their tree roosts with dozens of egrets.
I met this friendly blackbird this morning in Barcelona’s Santa Catarina neighbourhood. Mirlo in Spanish, Merla in Catalan.
Paper wasp on its communal nest. Antic Jardí Botànic, Montjuïc. “While not aggressive, they will defend their nests if disturbed” … I can vouch for that…
Enchanting late night looking for hedgehogs in Montjuïc as part of a scientific study, to the raucous concert of thousands of frogs and toads, croaking and beeping in the Mediterranean night, barely 30m walk from la Rambla. With Galanthus, Zoo de Barcelona and Ajuntament de Barcelona
#barcelonaurbanwildlife
Galanthusnatura. I love urban wildlife.
Cute Mediterranean tree frog (ranita meridional in Spanish, reineta in Catalan) on Montjuic. Captured by Barcelona’s amphibian monitoring programme run by Galanthusnatura. I love urban wildlife.
I would love to be driving again on this road today watching the Peninsula pass by.
(N-240, Berdún. Huesca, one summer)
This grey heron perched on top of the otter enclosure at Barcelona zoo yesterday, I assume waiting for a fish after the nutrias have finished. More than 100 pairs of herons nest wild in the zoo’s trees. Photo by my 8-year-old daughter Iona.