It is still quite warm here on the Costa Blanca. Yesterday was a bit of bummer as we had to wait in for the wi-fi connection to arrive via Spanish Postal services, so practically lost a whole day just kicking our heels. I did some university work and also read my book, Farewell to Ice by Peter Wadhams a scientist from Cambridge. I admit it felt quite weird reading about ice formation when the temperature outside was in the low thirties Centigrade. I explored the garden and found a couple of butterflies and the remains of a tiger butterfly, one of the Danaidae or milk weed butterflies. We did find a very reasonable restaurant and had a super meal so that compensated somewhat.

Tuesday we went to El Hondo reserve, one of the largest in the Valencia community and it is big, it was also rather warm and I only felt able to visit half of it. Part of it is only open once a week and you have to book, which despite the language difficulty, I managed to do, so we go back on Saturday for the led walk.

It was pretty good: little ringed plover, Kentish plover, black winged stilt, glossy ibis, little and cattle egret, marsh harriers and peregrine. Of the non avian category we saw tiger butterflies, mirror carp and possibly grey mullet in the canals surrounding the site. The canals are a means of irrigating the site and thus controlling the water levels. Unfortunately, there are usually issues with local farmers who also have access to some of the water - the usual conflict of interest issue. It has also been a very dry summer. The canals are two or three metres across and we found some spider webs which spanned them.

Wednesday, today we went to Lagunas de la Mata Torrevieja. This was a reserve we found last year and found very rewarding. This year was spectacularly so. We sat for a couple of hours watching an osprey perched on a post on a small man made island in the smaller lake. We’d been told there were black necked grebes present, so I expected to look for one or two. One or two hundred possibly more. There was a raft of them in the middle of the lake which we were only able to verify later when we walked to another viewing point which being up a fifteen foot platform gave us a different viewing perspective. There was a second raft of birds which probably numbered thousands but we weren’t able to discover what they were as they drifted away from us.

Coming away from the hide we saw two great grey shrikes, known as butcher birds from their predilection of impaling prey on a thorn bush while they eat it. Out trek to the viewing platform went through a small area of oak and pine woodland in which we saw three red squirrels -annoyingly, I’d left my camera back at the villa taking only the replacement batteries.

The cicadas were in fine voice - well okay, tymbals (fine membranes on each side of the body which they vibrate). Normally, although the noise is relatively loud, it’s very difficult to find the cause of it and today was no exception. One variety seemed to have the equivalent of a chain saw as the buzzing noise was very loud and prolonged and we spent several minutes trying to see where it was, to no avail. We walked on and reached another viewing point at ground level which sadly didn’t have much to show.

However, on the way back one of the noisiest type of cicada seemed to be calling from a relatively small tree. Usually, I’m trying to see them with a torch at night so they see me coming. Today they saw me coming but I examined the tree as much as I could and almost missed the insect, with its brownish body and cellophane like wings. I think it’s one called Cicadetta argentata, make your own mind up. I did manage a photo with my second camera which I think worked quite well.

The culmination of our trip included a wander up the other side of the reserve where we saw stone curlews, last year. These are weird looking birds and sadly I didn’t get a photo of them as they’re very flighty, but we did manage a positive identification of them.

Finally, I logged onto the Open University for my first ‘electronic’ tutorial. Two others signed in after me and we waited and waited and waited. At just before nine pm I decided I’d wasted enough time and logged off not having spoken to my tutor, who as far as I knew hadn’t signed in. There is a possibility we went to the wrong room but it seemed to be the only one available. I’m sure I’ll find out eventually but it meant I didn’t have time to write Bike.

Tomorrow hopefully off to Santa Pola and another reserve.