Author:mena
The European crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus) is a species of passerine bird in the family Paridae. About 11.5 cm in length, it is easily recognizable by its prominent, curved and pointed crest of black and white feathers. Its face has black and white lines, with a black beak. The dorsal area is yellowish brown, with gray wings and tail. It is a very widespread and common species in coniferous forests such as pine forests in central and northern Europe and […]
Autumn has settled in the Font Roja. From the sea of orange trees in my town in the Ribera Alta, I pass without respite to a world with a mosaic of ocher and yellow colors. In its shadiest and most humid corners, this deciduous forest composed of the gall oak or Valencian oak (Quercus faginea), the ash, the maple (Make opalus subsp. Granatense), the mostajo, the yew… is at its maximum splendor. In the understory of this oak forest made […]
“Això era i no era, bon viatge fassa la cagarnera…” The goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) is a bird from the finch family, very lively and restless, with very striking colors and highly appreciated for its fluted and melodious song. Social in nature, they usually go in small groups, making short and fast flights at low altitude. It is 12 cm long and 23 cm wide, from head to tail, with a conical and sharp beak. Very showy plumage, as we have […]
Sin Dios y sin Santa María, por la chimenea arriba!… parten las brujas volando en escobas o transformadas en cárabos… rumbo a Cernégula… The afternoon falls in some lonely and secluded place in the imposing and wild Caroig Massif Natural Park. After a long day traveling along paths and roads, I arrived at the edge of an immense forest, after having crossed an endless sea of olive trees. I see in the distance flocks of finches, pipits and starlings wandering […]
The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is an emblematic bird of the Spanish urban landscape, extremely linked to man who has always been with us and which is now experiencing a marked decline in its populations. There used to be more sparrows in the streets of cities and towns throughout Spain. It is scarce in places where there are no towns and is absent in higher altitude areas and in forests without any type of human construction. But that balance that […]
With the arrival of the first cold weather, siskins (Carduelis spinus) arrive in our territory from northern Europe, a species of songbird from the Fringilliade family, very similar to siskins but with a much thinner beak. With yellowish-brown plumage, they present sexual dimorphism, where males have a black spot on their heads, while lighter-looking females have more striped chests. With a wingspan that sometimes exceeds 20 cm, it is a fairly small bird, measuring between 11 and 12.5 cm in […]
The European Owl (Athene noctua) is a nocturnal raptor that has been part of the Valencian agricultural landscape since time immemorial and for which I have a very special predilection. I still remember the first photographs I took of an owl with my analog film camera in those wonderful and nostalgic pre-digital times. The little animal was on top of a tile, in a small house in ruins, on the Font de Poveda road. The images I got were dark, […]
In this entry I am going to talk about a beautiful arthropod that is worth knowing. It is quite common, but on many occasions it goes unnoticed by our eyes. The green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea, is a fascinating insect of the family Chrysopidae, widely distributed in different parts of America, Europe and Asia, which has inhabited the Earth for 300 million years, saving itself from the Permian extinction that wiped out 9 of every 10 species. In their larva stage, […]
The grosbeak cocothraustes cocothraustes is the largest of the Spanish finches. A bird that mostly winters in our latitudes, it visits us very irregularly during the coldest months of the year, where the practically non-existent sedentary population of the Iberian Peninsula is joined by a significant contingent of migrant individuals from Central Europe. Stealthy and difficult to observe, it is one of the most robust and compact birds of the European avifauna, with a short tail that together with a […]
During my long walks in early spring, in any corner of the forest, I am accompanied by an unmistakable and peculiar fluted song (tiri-oliuuu), which can be heard from a long distance, alternating with harsh calls reminiscent of the squawking of corvids ( cueejj). The protagonist of these sounds that will occur in the early hours of the morning and at the end of the afternoon from the thicket, and at the top of the trees, is a very discreet, […]
