Tag: Spain

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Menu drollery

An Indian takeaway menu put through my door had this:

Biryanis
This elaborate form of cooking involves baking layers of meat or vegetables such that the flavours and aromas enthuse the rice; enhanced with saffron and spices.

Which reminded me of a couple of phonetic attempts at English from a menu in Spain. Since I can speak, read or write no languages other than my own, I always feel a bit embarrassed finding amusement in other people’s broken English, but these are just fabulous:

Fraid in bredcams praws

Could mits

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Culture Me Nature

Spain photos

I forgot to say, you can see a (fairly large) selection of my Spain photos here.

Categories
Me Nature

Spain Bird List

I’ve divided the list into not-very-taxonomically-coherent chunks to make it easier to read.

Little Grebe
Great-crested Grebe
?Mediterranean Shearwater
Cormorant

Little Bittern
Cattle Egret
Squacco Heron
Little Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron

White Stork
Glossy Ibis
Spoonbill
Flamingo

Greylag Goose
Mallard
Gadwall
Shoveler
Garganey
Pochard
Red-crested Pochard

Griffon Vulture
Short-toed Eagle
Booted Eagle
Black Kite
Marsh Harrier
Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel
Peregrine

Red-legged Partridge
Moorhen
Coot
Purple Swamphen

Avocet
Black-winged Stilt
Collared Pratincole
Ringed Plover
Kentish Plover
Grey Plover
Sanderling
Dunlin
Curlew Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Redshank
Black-tailed Godwit
Bar-tailed Godwit
Whimbrel

Black-headed Gull
Yellow-legged Gull
Audouin’s Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Little Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Royal Tern (!!)
Whiskered Tern

Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Cuckoo
Great Spotted Cuckoo
Little Owl
Swift
Pallid Swift
Hoopoe
Bee-eater
Ring-necked Parakeet
?Blue-crowned Parakeet

Crested Lark
Calandra Lark
Sand Martin
Swallow
House Martin
Tawny Pipit
White Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail
Wren
Robin
Nightingale
Wheatear
Stonechat
Blackbird

Garden Warbler
Blackcap
Sardinian Warbler
Whitethroat
Dartford Warbler
Sedge Warbler
Zitting Cisticola
Savi’s Warbler
Cetti’s Warbler
Reed Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Melodious Warbler
Chiffchaff

Spotted Flycatcher
Pied Flycatcher
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Short-toed Treecreeper

Woodchat Shrike
Azure-winged Magpie
Magpie
Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
Raven

Spotless Starling
Golden Oriole (heard)
House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch
Linnet
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
Serin
Corn Bunting

Categories
Me Nature

Whales watched.

The whales behaved very prettily – a group of Long-finned Pilot Whales came over and swam around the boat so we could see them. Also Common Dolphin and Striped Dolphin. They saw the first Sperm Whale of the season yesterday, apparently, but no such luck for us.

Also saw what I’m pretty sure must have been a pair of Balearic Shearwaters – the proportions seem wrong for Cory’s and the pale underside wasn’t that striking – but not being familiar with either species and only seeing them fleetingly, I don’t know if I can count it.

Categories
Me Nature

whale-watching

I’ve booked a whale-watching trip for tomorrow. I suspect this means a few dolphins and a pilot whale if you’re lucky, rather than enormous skeins of sperm whales stretching as far as the eye can see. But I figure it will also be a good way to see some pelagic birds – skuas, shearwaters, petrels and suchlike. It certainly seems worth a punt.

I am slightly worried that the famous local windiness will result in a trip mostly memorable for the vomiting, but hey-ho, the wind and the rain.

Categories
Me Nature

Tarifa

I’m in Tarifa. Tarifa is the southernmost point in Europe – or at least the point closest to Africa or something – which is why I’m here. Migration. Huge flocks of raptors flying across the straits on their way north. Theoretically. It’s also the kite-surfing capital of Europe, so if I suddenly get the urge to get a tattoo or a pair of baggy shorts, I’m in the right place.

The kite-surfing thing is because of the wind system created by the meeting of the Med and the Atlantic. So I may also end up a bit sand-blasted.