He rocks in the tree tops all day long

Anthony is rarely seen these days without his binoculars, that and a few things recently have made Carol realise that he is morphing into a proper twitcher: he has been ticking off birds we have seen in his Birds in Europe book; he has been looking at bird watching forums on the internet and we were walking along the beautiful, rocky coast near Bolnuevo, Anthony picked up his binoculars to get a better look at a nearby bird and commented that it was another Sardinian Warbler.

Our Blue Bus is also a useful mobile hide. When we stop for lunch in a quiet layby, we can watch the birds as we eat, they don’t seem to notice the large blue VW in the same way they do a human being. The photograph shows a typical stop.

As well as many new species of birds, we also see the usual suspects, such as Robins, Buzzards and Sparrows in Spain. We have been wondering if all the Sparrows we see have migrated to Spain from the UK for the warmer weather and improved life style; including the easy availability of crumbs from the very crusty bread.

The coast at Bolnuevo has rocks eroded into splendid shapes, the photograph shows some of these. However, as the camp site lacked the atmosphere we are looking and we had to stay in the area while we waited for a bike wheel to be repaired, we took the opportunity to spend a night inland in the Sierra Espuna National Park. It was cold in the mountains at night, but as you can see from Anthony’s attire, it was still T-shirt weather during the daytime. This detour also meant we met Neil and Catherine, a lovely and friendly couple who are travelling overland from the UK to Cape Town