Picture a very hot day, but now there is a little breeze as the sun starts to set, the roof garden becomes bearable, and thoughts of relaxing over a drink or two loom large. Madrid airport is sending off the evening flights, which pass by comparatively quietly in the distance. But what is this? Mixed up with the 707 aircraft are swallows and even swifts, and now a bat!
Our family's flat has two major plusses for me: the bird life and the presence in the next street of a country park. This town, nearly a suburb of Madrid, stops dead just around the corner. As if to underline this, a socking great combine harvester waddles close to a two-mile long line of flats which offer premium views towards small fields, the park and, mountains.
I suppose it is the presence of suburbia that the swallows and swifts have a chance to thrive there, because out in the country they are given short shrift by the Spanish gun clubs. It was a pity they couldn't have witnessed a swallow family in the "well" of the flats, practising their flying, and chattering incessantly from washing-line to washing line. Later, in the shadows they took a well-earned siesta.
Some of them were perhaps those we saw later on the roof, flying high and vying for speed with the screaming swifts, which I have not seen for years in England. And bats, in large numbers, flitting unerringly through the TV masts! What species they were, I don't know, but I do know that I have never seen at bat in the reserve, which is a crying shame. Odd, isn't it, that a bit of Spanish suburbia attracts more wildlife of this sort than here in Sussex.
We managed a couple of forays into the country park, the heat permitting, finding lots of lizards, sparrows, magpies (of course), cicadas and hundreds of - I think - the short, dense bushes of holly oaks, with their very prickly leaves. Elsewhere, on a long drive, pleasure of pleasures, was a large collection of storks wheeling in a thermal of hot air.
Next week, we will be back working in the heather - and hopefully a good deal cooler!
John Hall © 2003