Travels with a birder 2: a robin, but not as we know it.
Olive groves
Hilary Macmillan comes across a different type of robin on her travels with a birder.
Our second expedition takes us some 18 miles south of the World Heritage town of Merida. Through a mutual friend, we have met up with Lorenzo in a bar (I detect a growing pattern here). In his spare time, Lorenzo studies the rufus bush robins not far from the small town of Almendralejo. Generously, he has given up a precious day off to meet two strangers to show them this rather special bird.
We jump into Lorenzo’s aged 4x4 and bounce along several miles of dusty dirt tracks. It’s heading towards 40 degrees both outside and inside the vehicle. The landscape is a patchwork of olive groves and vineyards. It seems that the robins appreciate a varied landscape and this kind of mixed farming is ideal for them.
For a remote track, the route is strangely popular. We pass by small groups of weary travellers, struggling to look cheerful in the rising heat and weighed down with super-size rucksacks. “This track is part of the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela,” Lorenzo explains. “These pilgrims will have started in Sevilla and have many hundreds of kilometres ahead of them to Santiago.” I check on Google. The route is 1,000km. I immediately stop fretting about no aircon.
Finally, after much dust and discomfort, we reach our destination, get out and start walking. The parched earth is deeply cracked – there has not been any meaningful rainfall here for months. Despite the drought, the track boasts a glorious array of wildflowers. One of the flowers, a member of the thistle family, is picked and used in making the traditional Extremadura sheep cheese Torta del Casar. The thistle’s pistils act like a vegetarian version of rennet, curdling the milk to form a deliciously spreadable cheese. We later discover that this local queso works wonderfully well with a glass of local Ribera del Guadiana wine.
Lorenzo signals us to stop. He points to a bird that looks as if it should really be brightly coloured but has been put through a black and white 3D printer. It is perched on a distant olive tree. Through our binoculars, we can see it is a great grey shrike. A rare visitor to England, this the largest of the European shrikes was once known as the ‘greater butcher bird’. “The problem we have with the shrikes,” Lorenzo explains, “is that they are very clever at mimicking the calls of the bush robins – and then like miniature raptors, they catch and eat them.” The shrikes have a tiny ‘tooth’ on their hooked beak, and to avoid a nasty nip, Lorenzo tells us that he takes great care when ringing these feisty birds of prey.
We enter several of the olive groves and after much patience we are rewarded with the sight of a thrush-size bird in various shades of brown and striking eye stripes. It sings plaintively – the repetitive song of a melancholic song thrush. This is my first sighting of these seemingly unremarkable birds – unremarkable until the robin fans and shakes its large rufous brown tail, edged with feathers tipped black and white. At the same time, it holds out its wings, like a cormorant. Sensing our presence, it stops posturing and vanishes deeper into the olive grove.
These are not the olive groves of travel brochures. The trees are grown close together in dense rows and pruned to allow harvesting by machine – in the same way as many English apples are now cultivated. Lorenzo tells us that, although they don’t yet have robust data, it does seem that the bush robins dislike these walls of olives trees: their preference is for the open space of the traditional groves. The new-style groves are also thirsty and to quench their thirst, new boreholes are springing up across the countryside. Lorenzo worries that water reserves could be impacted if this continues unchecked.
This area is a national stronghold for rufous bush robins, but the numbers in Spain are declining. The reason is unclear, but everything points to the changes in farming methods. During our trip through Spain, we have seen much evidence of conservationists trying to mitigate for the relentless ‘progress’ of food production, including, along the road to Caceres from Trujillo, where bird boxes can be seen on every telegraph pole to provide nesting sites for the European roller. This area of Spain is a long way behind the UK in terms of habitat destruction, but it’s perhaps following its lead.
As we walk on, the heat is veering towards the danger zone. We pass by a string of vineyards. Many of these are now also being cultivated using wires to allow for machine picking. Traditionally, the vines were left to grow as individual bushes. We spot two more robins delving in the dry earth for caterpillars, worms and other tasty invertebrates. Research is ongoing and the jury is still out, but it does seem that the bush robins are not too fazed by this agricultural change. We must hope so. The presence of the bush robins amongst the vines is a sign of the vineyard’s environmental quality – and perhaps another justification for drinking Extremadura wine.
We leave the bush robins and head back to our 4x4. Another group of exhausted pilgrims pass us by. “How much further to Merida?” they ask. I look at their half empty water bottles. I can only think that these travellers must have a strong spiritual belief to keep them going. We thank Lorenzo profusely for giving up his day to talk so passionately about the birdlife of this area of Spain and, as seems to be the tradition on this trip, we head for the nearest bar and this time a chilled, locally produced cava.