Bird count so far is 161, so beaten last year's 158. Phew.
Yesterday - 60 in total, which was our best yet.
New birds yesterday - 8.
Today - 56 in total.
No new birds and we're leaving the Ebro Delta tomorrow, with no more watery spots 'til we get home, which doesn't count.
1 star bird today - Great Reed Warbler. The more we heard it, the more we saw it... and then photographed it. At the end of the day we even left one singing loudly at the top of a reed. It sounds more like a musical instrument than a singer.
1st May 2015
There was a load of unusual human activity for a Friday and we travellers were perplexed... until we realised mid-G & T that it is 1st May and probably a public holiday. That, or else people don't go to work in Spain on Fridays. As we were convinced that today was Great Reed Warbler Day, May Day came a poor second.
11th hotel
That's the number of this one - although it's more of a B & B with dinner. We think it's a re-claimed finca, as of some of my pics. It's on the edge of town/rice fields and is in a lovely setting, with a field of artichokes at the back, an aroma of jasmine and brightly coloured geraniums-in-pots around the house.
We were the only guests on the first of three nights and are resenting the arrival of the half dozen May Day crowd. Travelling before the 'season' begins, means that we have the majority of hotels to ourselves and we've got used to having all the attention. It doesn't mean that we necessarily get attention - as per nearly no coffee at breakfast this morning and no-one to meet and greet us when we arrived. Had a terrible feeling we might be homeless for a second time.
Spanish hotels are the subject for a whole other blog BUT I need to get this off my chest. Why is there nowhere to put your things down (other than the floor) in bathrooms (yuk)? Why are there so few (usually none) hooks to hang towels, especially when you don't want new ones? Shower heads?! A whole blog to themselves. Bathrooms and bedrooms which look clean but aren't. I don't have long black hair. Why do we have to pay the full price for a parador when the builders are in? Lights in passages and toilets which are on very short timers. Thank goodness for the torch on my phone, which has saved me a time or two from having a panic attack - usually in a frighteningly black toilet. Towels like exfoliators! Don't mind a mid-term towel (fluffy is a luxury) but when it actually hurts.... Phew - feel better for that.
3rd fish night - coming up.
26th fish night in total.
The following isn't a hotel (ha ha) but it makes up for me not being able to take a picture of the Great Reed Warbler on my tiny camera. A man came puffing into a bird hide today with a camera the size of a hotel - it was enormous. Humungous. He proceeded to take it out of the huge camera bag on his back and he puffed and gasped as if he'd just run the London Marathon. He then pointed it in the direction of the water, annoyingly puffing and gasping, and proceeded to machine gun - that's what it sounded like - goodness knows what. He hardly drew a breath. I am reliably informed that it was 'the biggest lens I have ever seen'.
Not a hotel... but my Squacco Heron
Taken with one of the smallest cameras you have ever seen - from a distance.
Typical drive-by Ebro Delta scenery
...and some more
Mallard Towers
I don't like to admit it, but am getting quite fond of ducks. It needs more work.
Back to hotels...
Food and language are to be written about.
I'm supposed to be such an adventurer... ha ha. Have just eaten black rice, made black by, probably, some awful internal organ of a fish. It wasn't right. The black was so black it made our teeth, lips, tongues and probably other bits and pieces, very black. Writing about it makes me feel black. After some rigorous teeth cleaning and gargling, I'm trying to re-stabilise self by drinking some Miles tea accompanied by a Tesco shortbread biscuit. Lets hope both have internal cleansing powers.
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