# Wildlife



## Helenameva (Aug 15, 2014)

Something keeps bothering me, which is the lack of wildlife over here. We live in a rural area and so would expect lots of everything but we hardly see any birds (a few magpies here and there). I saw one spider yesterday when I moved some rocks in the garden which is a rarity (I'm 6' 4" so used to being attacked by spiders webs every time I enter a room). We get some big beetles in the summer but not many, a few lizards, not many worms in the garden, some mice. The only things we do have in abundance are flies and mosquitos.

All the farmers here grow grapes for cava and I'm wondering if this mono-culture means a lot of wildlife just aren't attracted to this area. So what is it like in other parts of Spain?


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

I have often wondered the same thing. I belong to a hiking club and so we are out in the "wilds" of the Andalucia mountains quite a bit. And yet I have never seen _any_ wild mammals (there are supposed to be hares, mountain goats and boars but I've never seen any), and I've only seen common reptiles like lizards and toads. Soaring overhead we have seen large birds such as vultures and falcons, but only occasionally. Around my house we get nothing but lizards, geckos, blackbirds and sparrows. 

I am from New England and I am used to seeing all manner of wildlife just by glancing out the window: dozens of types of birds big and small including flocks of turkeys and geese, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, skunks, and even deer. So it seems strange to see virtually nothing here.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

I woudn't say the place is teeming with wildlife, but where we take the dog for a walk there are jabalí (wild pig) and this is a country area, but very well used by walkers, cyclists and dog walkers. I see a few birds and the occasional snake. Going from one town to another there are stretches of country roads and I've seen again the occasional fox and jabalí. There are also partridges. In the hills/ mountains near us (Torrelodones, Los Molinos and La Pedriza) I've seen wild goats.
And lizards and gekos all over including my garden.
Oh and rats, unfortunately.


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## Helenameva (Aug 15, 2014)

Yes, I forgot the ocasional grass snake. Wild pigs and goats sound interesting! What about cattle? No sheep, cows, pigs, just grapes. No horse riders leaving free oss muck (as my mom used to say) for the garden. Is it just the climate? Sure it's warmer but we still get a decent amount of rain so it's quite green and lush.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Helenameva said:


> Yes, I forgot the ocasional grass snake. Wild pigs and goats sound interesting! What about cattle? No sheep, cows, pigs, just grapes. No horse riders leaving free oss muck (as my mom used to say) for the garden. Is it just the climate? Sure it's warmer but we still get a decent amount of rain so it's quite green and lush.


Oh yes, lots of cows locally, no sheep or pigs, and there a lot of stables. OH and daughter went for riding classes for about 3 years a while ago.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

Helenameva said:


> Yes, I forgot the ocasional grass snake. Wild pigs and goats sound interesting! What about cattle? No sheep, cows, pigs, just grapes. No horse riders leaving free oss muck (as my mom used to say) for the garden. Is it just the climate? Sure it's warmer but we still get a decent amount of rain so it's quite green and lush.


Oh yes, in this corner of Spain there's loads of cattle, mostly pigs (serrano ham!), sheep and goats (cheese!), and to a lesser extent cows, horses and oxen.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

There are definitely wild boar around here as
a) a friend of ours had a collision with one whilst driving on an unlit road at night, and
b) our neighbour two doors away brought one home on his motorbike and hung it up on his terrace after he'd shot it.

That probably explains the fate of a lot of the wildlife - shooting is very popular.


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## olivefarmer (Oct 16, 2012)

I live in Andalucia and have observed the same superficial phenomena. Recently I went to SW Scotland twice and was stunned at the sheer number of birds everywhere for example. Deer in broad daylight.

My suspicion is that there isn't the same density of wildlife here but it is here nonetheless. It just takes some finding.

Hunting is very popular around here and as a result just about everything seems to be wary of humans. Blackbirds and robins are very timid compared to their Uk cousins. I have seen golden oriele twice in ten years . Our Spanish neighbour has never seen one. An hispanic cabra has been seen twice withing 500 metres of our house yet despite numerous concerted efforts, I am yet to see the small herd that lives nearby. Plenty of spoor . I have seen them elsewhere withing twenty km.


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## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

I have noticed the same.
I put it down to the hunting. The Spanish hunt anything that moves!


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## Nignoy (Jun 4, 2010)

as an urbanisation newbie,I was a bit disappointed at the lack of rural wildlife, but now 12 weeks in, have seen fox on their evening rounds, quite a few different sized hedgehogs, wrens,wagtails and the occasional sparrowhawk,and of course the glorious flamingos and waders on the salt flats, as the weather gets better hope to get up into the mountains and find more wildlife


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

We had a flock of wild Atlantic Canaries in the garden yesterday.


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## virgil (May 3, 2012)

I recall seeing a lot of wildlife around an area known as Veronicas Strip in Playa de las Americas, Tenerife, when we lived there :tongue:


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

It's out there, You just have to know where to look. Hunting does tend to make wildlife a bit wary so even your presence (especially crashing through the undergrowth) is enough to put them into "lock-down" mode.

Have seen a golden eagle near Vizcaya come down and snatch something from the other carriageway of the autopista. We had a young wild boar in the next-door neighbour's garden shortly after we arrived. Deer and foxes are not uncommon especially in the Natural Park where we sometimes go go a break as are griffon vultures. Birds are aplenty including golden orioles, hoopoes, pheasants, partridges, bluetits, robins, starlings, blackbirds, etc.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Wild animals will do their best to make sure you don't see them. In the Natural Park I live in (the Alcornocales), there are healthy populations of wild boar, red deer, roe deer, otters, foxes, genets, wildcats, polecats and mongoose. I've seen mongoose on several occasions and a red deer once, and that's it.

I am luckier on the bird front because I live on a migration route between Africa and Europe and they come over in their thousands each spring and autumn, all shapes and sizes. We get quite a few visiting birders and with their help I am gradually learning to identify them all.

I am assured that hunting helps protect the wildlife, because of the amount of land that is fenced off and protected for that purpose. I just wish they'd shoot with cameras and not rifles though.


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## Isobella (Oct 16, 2014)

We have seen the migration from our roof terrace, amazing how they float in the air currents. There is a bird watching society in Gibraltar.Although coastal, have seen hoopoes, a night jar and a mongoose. Unfortunately some snakes. Have not seen Boar just the mess they make. My friend saw the Ibex close to Istan in the Sierra de Los Nieves. I have seen Storks around Sevilla. The flamingoes at Fuente de la Piedra are worth a trip.

They probably see us more than we see them

I do wonder about Almeria having much wildlife due to all the plastic and the crop spraying.


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## Helenameva (Aug 15, 2014)

I think crop spraying is stopping a lot of wildlife here too. I'm going to build a bug hotel in the garden to see what I can attract. 
I have been in the centre of Barcelona today and there are more birds in the city than the countryside. One of the few things I miss from England is birdsong.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Helenameva said:


> One of the few things I miss from England is birdsong.


So do I unless I put my hearing aids in, but then I have to silence the dogs, otherwise I keep hitting the ceiling every time they bark.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Helenameva said:


> I think crop spraying is stopping a lot of wildlife here too. I'm going to build a bug hotel in the garden to see what I can attract.
> I have been in the centre of Barcelona today and there are more birds in the city than the countryside. One of the few things I miss from England is birdsong.


Come on down to our place, we have goldfinches, warblers and nightingales to spare! 

Have fun with your bug garden. We get the occasional praying mantis and giant cricket on the windowsill, and those great big black carpenter bees that seem to have no sense of direction.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Helenameva said:


> One of the few things I miss from England is birdsong.


Not long to go before we will be waking up to the morning chorus once the huge population of swifts arrives back from their winter holidays. I like to hear it because it means summer is on the way, also like seeing them wheeling around filling the skies just before nightfall.

We have a breeding pair of owls living not far away, one in a church tower and the other atop an old fort. If sitting on the roof terrace late at night in the summer they can sometimes be seen flying over us, they look almost ghostly. We sometimes see birds of prey hovering around as well, and we are in a big town not out in the countryside.


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## Isobella (Oct 16, 2014)

I forgot about the bats, they are cute. I love the swallows too. Have seen the babies all in a row in the terrace nests.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Lynn R said:


> Not long to go before we will be waking up to the morning chorus once the huge population of swifts arrives back from their winter holidays. I like to hear it because it means summer is on the way, also like seeing them wheeling around filling the skies just before nightfall.
> 
> We have a breeding pair of owls living not far away, one in a church tower and the other atop an old fort. If sitting on the roof terrace late at night in the summer they can sometimes be seen flying over us, they look almost ghostly. We sometimes see birds of prey hovering around as well, and we are in a big town not out in the countryside.


In the village, the swifts, swallows and martins usually arrive here somewhere around St Patrick's Day. The swifts will come right up to your face (within a foot or less) if you are on the terrace. Residents here are all sorts of finches, tits, starlings, pigeons, bats, praying mantis, cucarones, jumping spiders, bats, giant (wingspan > 6") grasshoppers, various butterflies and moths, etc. and they are just the ones you might encounter airborne around or near the house. If we are at the natural park then the list is amplified umpteenfold and even includes dung-beetles

I have found that I have often had to rescue creatures here : lizards stuck to the sticky moth traps; birds with nylon or similar unbreakable threads caught round legs or wings entrapping them; young birds or bats that have fallen from nests; waterlogged birds that have flown into the streams of water that sluice off roofs during a sudden downpour and crashed to the ground, etc.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

I forgot about bats too. Yes, we get bats. And swallows too. And there are screech owls about at night. We can also see storks with their giant nests on top of perches placed for them on the high tension electric towers.


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## Nignoy (Jun 4, 2010)

*Bats*



Isobella said:


> I forgot about the bats, they are cute. I love the swallows too. Have seen the babies all in a row in the terrace nests.


my wife really doesn't miss the fruitbats ,they are really cute but they used to strip our mango trees bare and crap everywhere,


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

baldilocks said:


> I have found that I have often had to rescue creatures here : lizards stuck to the sticky moth traps; birds with nylon or similar unbreakable threads caught round legs or wings entrapping them; young birds or bats that have fallen from nests; waterlogged birds that have flown into the streams of water that sluice off roofs during a sudden downpour and crashed to the ground, etc.


We found a very young owl in our patio once. My OH scooped it up and put it on the roof but the poor thing just rolled off and fell into the street (obviously couldn't fly) so it had to be rescued again before a cat could get it. He sought help from a Spanish neighbour who said he had a friend who cared for birds, so it went off to him and he told us some time later it had grown pretty big.


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## Madliz (Feb 4, 2011)

I keep a list of birds seen in - or from - my garden 40km north of Madrid and am up to 49 so far. We have bats roosting under the upstairs windowsills and love watching them swoop down and drink from the pool on summer nights, after the swallows have done the same in the daytime. 

Last week on the train into Madrid I saw, as usual, plenty of deer. Last month on a drive to Salamanca I saw foxes, Little Owls, an Eagle Owl, Sparrowhawks and rabbits from the car. I have seen a mongoose in Sevilla, along with Europe's largest moth, the Great Peacock Moth, as well as a water snake. Wild boar are widespread, all manner of insects from the fabulous violet-winged Carpenter Bee to crickets and mantids, then snakes and lizards and a gecko around the windows... I adore the wildlife here and see far more than I ever did in the UK!


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## Helenameva (Aug 15, 2014)

Thanks everybody for your replies. It looks like I've been unlucky with choosing this area to live (actually it chose me, sort of). Anyway, I had already decided to do more exploring in the countryside this Spring so I will hopefully find a bit more life in the forests, fields and mountains further away.


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