As the month rolls on, much of our attention is inevitably focused on new arrivals, as our summer visitors continue to return. There are departures too however, and two winter favourites have largely disappeared from the orchards and olive groves down here in the valley. Our Blackcap and Black Redstart are heading north, and the garden just isn’t quite the same…
As regular readers of our posts will know, the winter concentration of Blackcap around the village is something we’ve commented on more than once. The Spanish population is boosted by large numbers of wintering birds from northern Europe and I was counting Blackcap into double figures in a single fruit tree only a few short weeks ago. Newly arrived males sang brilliantly in autumn, and their short, hard “tack…tack” calls were part of everyday life.
Not now though. Most of those birds are on their way to nesting sites in the UK, Germany, maybe even Scandinavia. We do retain a local breeding population of course, and they can be found in the woodland around Lanjaron throughout the summer. For me though, it was the sheer numbers of Blackcap we had through the colder months that was the real surprise…definitely a bird of the Alpujarran winter. You could say much the same thing for the Black Redstart.
Jaunty, agitated…constantly on the move. Black Redstart have been snatching insects from beneath the fruit trees in the valley for months. Flitting between favourite perches, they’re the first to search any broken ground after I’ve been gardening, flashing their red tails as they dart about. It hasn’t lasted however. Some of the males were in breeding plumage before they started to thin out…from sombre ash-brown to pristine black and grey, with bright white summer patches on the wing. We have a resident population down here in Andalucia, but once again it was the scale of the seasonal influx that made the lasting impression and the garden is certainly missing something right now.
It’s all change of course…with our exotic summer favourites on their way home right now the season has just begun. Keep checking the reports for all the latest news!
