Wild!

For me, probably the highlight of our holiday in Portugal, was being able to add a few new species of birds to my 'life list'. We begin with a magnificently large one, the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia). Spotted soaring high above us while we sat on our balcony, sipping our afternoon tea (how English).

Standing about 4ft tall and with a wingspan of up to 6ft, it is truly an imposing bird and an exciting 'first' for me.
Secondly and on our way back from our long walk to Vilamoura, we spotted a falcon swooping around the cliffs. At first I thought it was a Peregrine, but on closer inspection it turned out to be an Eleonora's falcon. Sadly, I didn't manage to get a picture of this one as it didn't stay around long enough. Named after Eleonor of Arborea, a national heroine of Sardinia, this is a spectacular bird of prey it is a migratory species, spending winter in Madagascar. Spanish and German researchers have demonstrated the route through the Sahara Desert, the equatorial rainforests until reaching Kenya and Mozambique. The total distance covered during the flight has reached up to 9000 km for a single one-way trip. Spectacular!
Thirdly another bird of prey a Booted Eagle (Aquila pennata).

A little difficult to see in this picture as it was, like the Stork, soaring very high above our apartment. Another migratory species, it winters in sub-Saharan Africa and it is because of this migration that southern Portugal is such a good place to see birds. They accumulate here before attempting the crossing of the sea to Africa which is much shorter distance at this westernmost point of the Mediterranean.
Not new to me, but no less worthy of a mention here were the scores of Azure-Winged Magpies (Cyanopica cyana) which flew around almost everywhere. A simply beautiful member of the crow family.

Lastly, i must mention the Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis). These small heron-like birds were to be seen every day in the field over which our apartment looked, as they licked around looking for insects, grubs, etc.

On a separate note, I must mention a special person who has a birthday tomorrow. Malcolm (Latin name unknown) will turn 47 tomorrow but as we will be visiting my mum in Norfolk, there will be no blog entry, hence the early mention! So, Happy Birthday Malcolm ..... What a cute chap!

Vilamoura

Last Wednesday, Malcolm and I decided we would take a walk along the coast road to Vilamoura. Our route would take us along some spectacular and colourful cliffs, along quiet roads and along the wide, sandy beach.

The cliffs themselves are rather dangerous as they are extremely unstable. Instead of being made of rock, they consist of loose sands cut through by layers of even looser gravels.

This layering makes for some rather lovely colourful horizontal stripes of red and yellow and contributes to the sandy beaches. In some places, the authorities have sprayed the face of the cliffs with a strengthening layer of cement to try to prevent further disintegration.

When viewed against the deep blue of the Portugal sky, the colours stand out even more clearly.

By the time we had reached Vilamoura, we were ready for a sit down and a coffee. We found a nice cafe beside the marina, overlooking the large and expensive yachts and cruisers bobbing around in the water. The town is well known as a playground for the rich and famous, so Malcolm and I seemed to fit right in!!!!

Time to head for home along the beach - hard going as the sand is so soft, taking two steps forward and one back, makes the walk rather difficult. In all, the round trip was about 13 miles - no wonder we needed a sit down when we got back!

Albufeira

about 4 miles to the west of where we were staying lies the town of Albufeira. I mentioned our previous visit to this town, before we left for our holiday so it was nice to take a walk along the coast to have another look at it.
Approaching the town, the visitor looks down upon it from the heights of the cliff line.

Taking another vantage point above the main tourist shopping street, the view hadn't changed much from the time before - but this time the Christmas decorations were in evidence.

Close by is the Parish Church of Albufeira. Built high overlooking the town, it's white-painted, classical in style and rather beautiful - and also decorated for Christmas.

After a relaxing sit down at a rather nice cafe and an equally nice cup of coffee, it was time to turn our steps back to Olhos d'Agua and the 4 mile trudge back, mainly up hill! Just time for another look back at the town before we leave.

Home Again

We arrived back home from our Portuguese holiday, yesterday afternoon. Having spent the last nine days in sunshine and temperatures well into the 70's, coming home to cold and windy Britain was a bit of a shock to the system.

We have been staying at the small village of Olhos d'Agua, between Albufeira and Faro, on the Algarve. We stayed at the Maria Louisa Apartments and we can heartily recommend it for an out-of-season, quit stay.

Comfortable and well equipped and only a few yards away from the steps down to the beach which was clean, sandy and often deserted.

A short walk into the main village, you will find the main street which ends at the seafront and a small fishing community. The fishermen spend the day sitting by their blue-painted huts, mending their nets and attending to their small boats. It's all very quaint.

The boats are launched over the beach and hauled back up by rope when they return with their catch. It seems that quite a lot of their catch is sold in the restaurants on the seafront as the small of barbecued sardines was often to be 'sniffed' as we clambered around the cliffs overlooking the scene.

Spotted!

While in Benidorm in January this year, Malcolm and I noticed that the Google Earth Car went past us one morning as we walked along the seafront. I have been keeping an eye on Google Earth since then to see if we would appear - and guess what! We have...

Here, I have managed to capture some screen shots from Google Earth. Google have come in for some stick recently from people who say that to have 'street view' pictures of themselves or their houses, etc. is an infringement of their privacy. How it can be invading your privacy to show a picture of your house on Google Earth when there is nothing to stop anyone actually walking past it and seeing it for themselves, is beyond me.

Others say they do not want to be shown in the photos - as we have been here - but, again, what is there to complain about? Google 'smudge' out the features of anyone who appears so they are difficult to identify so you have to know where to look and who you are looking for anyway. For example, would anyone have spotted Malcolm and I on the seafront of Benidorm from these pictures, if I hadn't pointed us out? Even if they had, why would it bother us? It is no secret that we were in Benidorm at the time! It seems to me that you could only complain about such things, if you were somewhere you were not supposed to be, or if you were doing something you were either ashamed of, or was illegal.

So, "good on ya" Google. Keep up the good work, we love it!

Holidays

Monday will see Malcolm and I off on our travels again. this time to Portugal and the the Algarve. We went there a few years ago and I was just looking through our pictures of that visit. The road to Albufeira from our resort first.

The picture quality isn't very good I'm afraid. We didn't have a digital camera then but the pictures are held on a compact disk - you could have them either as prints or on a disk from 'Truprint' and we opted for the disk so that we could view the pictures on computer or, via the dvd player, on television.
It was about this time of year that we went and the weather was mostly good.

This view of the town of Albufeira shows a shopping street with tourists and shows the nice patterned paving. Lets hope we have decent weather again this time.

Aaaaaahhhhh!

Just once in a while, there comes a story which warms your heart and makes you go aaaaahhhhh! Today, I found this one on the Daily Mail website. It seems that a family of ducklings has been hatched about six months before they should have. so, in order for the cute little ducklings to survive the cold weather, a farmer has rescued them and brought them inside out of the worst of the winter.

What a bunch of little darlings, bobbing around in the sink. See the full article HERE.