Category: birdwatching

weeknotes, 17/26

this week had 2 highlights! first, me and the boy celebrated 20 years together, if you can believe it! <3 we had a nice pasta + tiramisu dinner and then watched when harry met sally. :) i mean, 20 years…!! what a brilliant adventure this has been.

this week’s other highlight was a quick solo trip to czech republic to meet a dear friend! we’ve been talking online for years, but had never actually met, and so it felt like it was time. lately, i feel like this might be the best reason to travel: just go and hug the people we care about. i don’t know if it’s because i’m over 40, or maybe because i feel the phantom threat of alzheimer’s on the horizon (made much more real by seeing how dementia robs us of our loved ones)… it’s probably a bit of both. it feels like the universe is always telling me there’s no better time than this to get out there and do things with the ones we love — so i try to listen sometimes.

i packed my stuff into a tiny ryanair-sized suitcase and flew across europe on a friday to spend the weekend with my friend D, and it was just lovely. we spent most of our time walking, talking and birdwatching. my phone battery died halfway through the day and i didn’t care one bit. i came back home the next monday with a huge smile on my face, ready for whatever.

plus, the country is just gorgeous, of a greenness that feels unreal to us southerners. rolling hills and thick forests where deer (and ticks…) roam. grilled cheese and gingerbread snacks. you can pay with cards or apps everywhere, and it’s so smooth that you barely even notice you’re using a different currency.

traveling alone also makes me brave, somehow — the more i get out there and prove to myself that i can do things on my own, the more i believe it and want to do more. so it was a very good week. more of this, please!

birdwatching in portugal just life

weeknotes 47/23

we spent the week in beja!

we had a postcard meeting this weekend and used our house swapping membership to spend a few extra days there, in a cozy and super central apartment. the week was passed birdwatching, walking the narrow streets of beja, people-watching in centenarian cafés, admiring all the pretty tiles and filling up our bellies with alentejo’s many delights.

we went into a local museum with works from jorge vieira, and only later did i realize that he was the same artist who did the huge “man-sun” metal sculture on expo 98. the museum focused more on his ceramic works, and the boy and i admired the one above, which we both thought was a pig until someone pointed out the horns… ?

and naturally, there was some birdwatching too! nothing too fancy, but we logged a few new birds, like a red kite, eurasian jackdaw and a spanish sparrow, which looked rather mean!

birdwatching

more waxbills

i’ve mentioned waxbills here on the blog before… but these pictures taken in the early morning light with the vineyard on the background came out so cute, so here they are again!

probably one of my favorite tiny birds!

birdwatching

glossy ibis

stumbled on a bunch of glossy ibis here in the ria the other day. they’re called the equivalent of “black ibis” in portuguese, and they do look black at a distance… but a closer look reveals a lot of other beautiful colors too, greens and rusty tones.

such a gorgeous bird! i don’t think i had ever seen them so close.

birdwatching

zitting cisticola

the zitting cisticola is the kind of bird you recognize mostly by hearing its periodic “zits” — when you look up, you notice a bird flying in waves, with the sound coinciding with the top of the wave. i was riding my bike through the salt ponds last weekend and noticed this one hanging around on a bush by the side of the road.

it gave me enough time to grab the camera and snap a couple of pictures, before flying away. neat! :)