Bee Eater flocks around Lanjaron 20th July 2009

There's no doubt about it, Bee Eaters have started appearing in some numbers again on the sunny lower slopes around the village. Not that they ever went away...during June I still heard their distinctive calls regularly. I suspect however that by and large they were concentrated at nesting colonies attending to the serious business of rearing young, and the sightings I had were limited to one or two individual birds.

I left my previous job on the hillside above the village about a week ago, and that morning a party of maybe 20 had flown over the house...the first sizeable flock I had seen in a few weeks. After relocating down into the valley below Lanjaron I've been hearing them most days, their calls carry some distance though so locating them isn't always easy.

This morning we took a run out to Orgiva for supplies...the laws of birdwatching dictate if you want to see something leave your bins behind, so I guess an encounter was on the cards. Sure enough, there they were...we turned a corner to find half a dozen Bee Eaters perched in a row like Swallows on a wire, just above the roadside. We jumped out of the car to take a closer look and a flock of maybe 20 birds took to the air, noisily wheeling overhead before settling again a short distance away.

I'm hoping these spectacular birds will be with us for the rest of the summer. It could be September before they cross the Mediterranean and head to Africa for the winter months, and with luck they'll assemble in ever increasing numbers before the big push south. It's time to clear the memory card, recharge the batteries and always carry the camera...