With the weather forecast for the coming days promising rain again it looks like we'll be battening down the hatches once more...with a bit of time on my hands perhaps we should have a closer look at another of our favourite local characters, the Serin.

The recent all-too-brief spell of sunshine filled our orchards and olive groves with birdsong for a few days, and at this time of year it's the trills and twitters of the Serin that make up much of the background noise. Resident across much of southern Europe, the Serin occurs in Spain, Portugal, south and west France and most of the Mediterranean region. Further north the species tends to be migratory, heading south-west in the autumn...interestingly, research has shown the Spanish population is swollen each winter by birds from Germany.

The Serin has in fact been moving steadily northwards through Europe for the last 200 years. UK birdwatchers may know the first recorded British breeding record was in Dorset in 1967 and further colonisation was expected...a small breeding population that appeared to have established in the southwest has however disappeared, and isolated reports of nesting now only come from East Anglia. Passage birds are seen back home every year, but to find this delightful, bold little species here in such numbers has been a real pleasure.

A tiny, lively, colourful finch, the Serin is a very familiar sight all around the village and the surrounding area. Adult males are a streaky yellow green colour, with bright yellow plumage around the head, throat, breast and rump. Females and juveniles are generally browner. The jingling "crushed glass" song of the males is an essential part of the soundtrack of an Alpujarran summer...they sing almost frantically from wires or the tops of bushes and trees, often with wings dropped to show off their yellow rumps to rivals and potential mates. The song is delivered in flight too, with displaying males rising steeply to parachute slowly down with stiff "slow-motion" wing beats.

With its origins in the woodlands of the Mediterranean, the Serin is now equally at home in parks, gardens, orchards and other cultivated areas. Here in the southern European stronghold of its range it can raise as many as three broods a year and is without a doubt the species of finch we most frequently encounter. Common they may be, but this engaging, bright little bird will always remind me of my time down here in Lanjaron. Summer just wouldn't be the same without them...