As we feared, the heavens have opened again, and heavy rain has brought our birdwatching to a temporary standstill once more. While we sit out the bad weather we thought we could take the chance to have a closer look at another of our local species, and today I've chosen a real personal favourite...the Blue Rock Thrush.

Very much a bird of southern Europe, the Blue Rock Thrush breeds through much of Spain, Portugal and across most of the Mediterranean region. It's very rare north of its established range and with only a handful of confirmed sightings in the UK it was towards the top of my "must-see" list for my time down here in Spain. I was thrilled to find this striking bird in some numbers on the local patch and for me it has come to typify our birdwatching in the Alpujarras.

The males particularly are a handsome sight when viewed well in good light. With rich, bright blue heads and dark slate-blue bodies they are definitely one of the more exotic looking members of the Chats and Thrushes group...females and juveniles are much browner overall.

As the name implies, this year-long resident favours ravines, gorges and other rocky areas with crags and boulders. It can also be found closer to human habitation and thus also occurs around quarries, ruins and other abandoned buildings, especially near the coast. The hillsides around Lanjaron provide the perfect habitat and they can be found without much difficulty surprisingly close the village...they perch characteristically on rocks, roofs and walls and despite looking rather nondescript at distance or in poor light, their distinctive thrush-like silhouette usually makes identification fairly straightforward.

The welcome recent break in the weather brought a few brighter days and our local Blue Rock Thrush were invigorated almost overnight...pairs appeared to be selecting territories and started to show signs of nesting, bobbing agitatedly and calling irritably as I passed by. They lay their clutches of eggs in holes in walls and between rocks and I have been struck by how many breeding pairs there appear to be on our doorstep...with a good local supply of invertibrates, small lizards and berries conditions are evidently perfect and we have a thriving, healthy population. The rain and cooler temperatures seems to have slowed them down again...monitoring their progress will be one of our tasks in the coming weeks.

As ever Kiersten has been busy with the camera and we're posting the best of our recent snaps...a typical shot of a real local character! They're a bird of sunny Spanish summers, and for me birdwatching down here in Andalucia wouldn't be the same without them. With a bit of luck we'll be reporting on nesting activity before very long...