Author:mena
During the last weeks I have returned to a place that brings back intense and nostalgic memories of a wonderful time, in which I accompanied the shepherds of this mountain range for many days to document their last adventures, specifically in the ravines of El Gatillo and de la Carrasca in the Sierra de Enguera, very close to the hamlet that in its day was a Muslim farmhouse, Casas de Benali. The leafy and large forests of these last foothills […]
The sphinx hummingbird, Macroglossum stellatarum (Carolus Linnaeus, 1758) is a species of ditrisian lepidopteran in the family Sphingidae. It lives in southern Europe, including the Iberian Peninsula, northern Africa and central Asia, India and Indochina. It receives its name from its flight and way of feeding, which are similar to those of the hummingbird. The wingspan is 40-45 mm. The front ones are brown with black lines and points and the rear ones are orange. The abdomen is black and […]
At this time, in any corner of our geography, in the intricate streets of our towns and cities, we can attend the Holy Week processions, some solemn acts, which to the rhythm of drums and drums, the faithful, in a mystical setting in where the smell of incense is breathed, the sacred images walk, all wrapped in a magical atmosphere of lights and shadows. Among all the elements that make up these religious manifestations, a multitude of conical figures stand […]
We are at the gates of winter, with the trees already practically devoid of their leaves, where the days are shortening and everything seems to go into absolute calm. It is during these times when certain wintering birds can be seen in our fields and gardens, such as robins, warblers, redstarts… which come from central and southern Europe to our latitudes fleeing the intense cold, and when the warmer months return again hot we will not see them again until […]
Today I have prepared to climb to the summit of the Sierra de Aitana, which with its 1558 meters, is the highest in the province of Alicante. The perfect excuse to enjoy another day in the mountains has been a tiny and elusive bird, the wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria), which wanted to try to find it near the top, because now in winter this inhabitant of the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian Mountains It usually performs an altitudinal migration looking for lower […]
The La Hoz ravine, already in the last foothills of the Caroig Massif in the Sierra de Enguera, is an extensive mountainous area predominantly occupied by bushes and fragments of forest formations that are home to many species of wildlife. It is one of those places that I usually visit two or three times a year, where I can enjoy a unique landscape environment. In this silent and inhospitable place, where eagles, vultures, ravens and others have jurisdiction, nature presents […]
The european robin, from the turdid family and with the scientific name Erithacus rubecula, is a small, round-shaped bird about 14 centimeters long. Its color above is brown, while below it is whitish gray, the chest and face have an orange-red coloration. The male and the female have the same coloration, only the young individuals are devoid of the front spot, presenting a more uniform coloration. It feeds on insects, earthworms, fruits and seeds. It nests in a hole in […]
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy full of stars and interstellar clouds, where the solar system and the Earth are located. It is the largest object observable from our planet. Due to our peripheral location within it, we see it edge-on and in an optically blurry form of great confusion due to the large number of stars and nebulae that overlap. It is estimated that it contains between 200,000 and 400,000 million stars. The distance from the Sun to […]
When the afternoons shorten and the summer comes to an end, coinciding with the drop in temperatures and the passage of storms, one of the most surprising natural events takes place in our Iberian mountain ranges, the bellowing, where male deer ( Cervus elaphus), the largest of our ungulates, experience heat, flooding the mountains, forests and valleys with their powerful and thunderous bellows. To do this, they raise the earth with their horns to deposit their body fluids in the […]
In this blog entry I am going to talk about the two kinds of snakes that inhabit the Iberian Peninsula, snakes and vipers, but focusing more on the myths and beliefs that have been woven over the centuries than on their biology, because a certain reptilian mythology of deep Spain still persists in the subconscious of many people, and it is our duty to dismantle these absurd superstitions, deny these totally unfounded hoaxes that have done them so much damage […]
