kites

Five Hundred

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

When I set out for Peru next week, the number of bird species I will have seen in my lifetime will be a clean five hundred. I’d like to say I’m not usually the record-keeping sort, but that would be pretty unbelievable. The fact that I’ve kept this blog going for the best part of eleven years says otherwise. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with list-keeping, but it does border on the nerdier, birder side of birdwatching, and there is a lingering part of me that still raises a wary eyebrow at the prospect of becoming an anorak. However, since Peru is generally considered one of the world’s finest destinations for birdwatching, I thought I’d cave in for a change, do a little spring cleaning and get my affairs in order before I go. And that means working out just how many birds I have seen over the last thirty-two years or so. It took me a few days to collate the various lists I have held onto over the years, and longer still to whittle down some of the more fanciful additions that may or may not have been added in haste, leaving me with a perfectly square total of five hundred species exactly. It’s a start.

I have been very lucky. I haven’t been as committed to my old hobby as others my age, but even so, my travels have afforded me encounters with a number of species I might otherwise never have seen: pygmy cormorants in the silent marshes around Torcello, Berthelot’s pipits in the Teide caldera and Rwenzori double-collared sunbirds in the clouded hills of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. I thought I’d share a few of my favourite encounters below.

Griffon Vulture

Vultures are far and away my favourite creatures on the planet and I make no secret of that. Cinerous, Egyptian, Palm Nut, White-backed, Hooded or Griffon – I’m not fussy. Something about their enormity, the way their wingtips spread wide like fingers, the silence with which they rule the skies… It’s spellbinding. They’re easily the fondest memory I have of my year in Spain when, aged eleven, I traded herring gulls for griffons for a year. I think I can be excused for being occasionally distracted in class when a tawny giant with a nearly three-metre wingspan happened to be passing by the window. I still get the shivers when I see that silhouette, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an even greater shadow in the sky when I go in search of an Andean condor in Peru’s Colca Canyon.

Nightjar

Something of a late discovery for me and inseparable from the Camino de Santiago, where it is the nocturnal yin to the diurnal yang of the stonechat – since both species seemed to follow me all the way from the French Pyrenees to Santiago. Nightjars can be found in the UK, but I’ve never seen them, despite searching the forests and heathlands where they are said to breed. On the Camino, however, one is so often up before the break of dawn that it’s virtually impossible not to run into these cryptic creatures at some point. Their endless churring sound must be very strange indeed to those who aren’t aware of its maker, sounding more like a giant cricket or a miniature UFO than a bird. Reports from Manu NP indicate that there may be nightjars to be found along the Madre de Dios river – I shall be keeping my eyes open.

Abyssinian Roller

I could have put any number of the more than two hundred and fifty species of bird I saw in Uganda on this post, but this one takes the top spot because of our story. Having never had any luck with European rollers in Spain, I was amazed to learn on the very first day of my stay in Uganda that there was a particularly handsome Abyssinian roller in the neighbourhood. But I’ll be damned if I thought photographing it might be a cinch – the bird gave me the run-around for most of my three-month stay, fearless and indifferent to my presence when I didn’t have my camera to hand and skittish in the extreme when I came prepared, as though it were camera-shy. In the end an act of God intervened on my behalf: an explosion of winged ants in the neighbour’s garden brought every winged insectivore within a hundred miles to the yard. With more than forty kites to worry about, plus a host of other raptors including shikras, lizard buzzards, grey kestrels and falcons, the roller had his mind on other things and I was able to get in a good shot or two. Sometimes it’s hard-fought encounters like that one that make a photo more compelling than all the editing in the world.

European Bee-Eater

Much like the roller, the bee-eater is an explosion of colour in avian form – at least, to a British birdwatcher’s eye, since most of our native birds are rather drab by comparison. They’re incredibly captivating creatures to watch as they flit through the air like oversized moths, but it’s their call that I love the most: a cheery whirrup that heralds the spring in Spain just like the merry twitter of the swallow in Britain. The sound alone makes me feel warmer – it takes me back to the sands of El Rocio and the dusty scrubland between the Madre de las Marismas and the Palacio del Acebron. One day, it may be warm enough for bee-eaters to colonise the UK. They have bred here with occasional success in the last few years, but it remains to be seen whether they will follow the example of the egrets and move in for good. A part of me hopes they don’t – they are far too tied to my image of Spain as a special paradise. Some things you should have to travel to behold, to see with your own eyes. That’s what I think.

Purple Swamphen

What list would be complete without one of my all-time favourites – the bird that probably kickstarted my obsession with Spanish birds? The purple swamphen is unmistakeable: a moorhen on steroids, with bigger feet, a bigger face-shield and a bigger attitude. I saw them first in El Acebuche, but since then I have found them in several other places: the rice paddies of the Brazo del Este, Uganda’s White Nile river and under the Roman Bridge in Merida. Like griffons, they lose nothing with each successive encounter, and I confess that my eyes are always on swivel-stalks whenever I’m crossing the bridge in Merida in the hope of catching one of them in the reeds below.

Red and Black Kites

WordPress won’t let me upload the images I have of the hoopoe, Iberian magpie and Montagu’s harrier, which would bring the total to ten, so I will have to finish with another old favourite: the kite. Specifically, it’s black kites that have always held sway in my heart, due to their association with the Elysian stone-pine forests of the Raya Real, but since red kites have pretty much exploded in number in the UK in my own lifetime, they’ve earned a spot in this list too. Despite nearly twenty years of active pursuit, I have yet to take a decent photograph of a black kite (in my defence, I have often been without my camera when the right moment presented itself). Had I brought my DSLR with me on the Camino last summer, I would have had the opportunity of a lifetime when I stumbled – quite by chance – upon a feeding frenzy for the local kite population in a rugby field a day’s march from the Spanish frontier. But, I didn’t, so I just took a few photos on my phone and watched the spectacle.

Kites are something of a bait-and-switch story for me. Since their whistling call was used in the BBC’s Land of the Tiger whenever vultures were on screen, I came to associate that sound with those kings of the sky. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised that vultures are pretty much silent (when they’re not squabbling over a carcass, that is), but by then the spell had already been cast. I would travel all the way to the Raya Real just to hear that sound. Of course, I’d go for more than that: the music-box melodies of a nightingale, the flute-song of a golden oriole, the oop-oop-oop of a hoopoe, the beak-clacking serenade of a stork and the descending whistle of a woodlark. But even if all those voices should fall silent, leaving nothing but the trill of a kite, I’d still make that journey. That’s how precious a single sound can be.

T minus one week. It’s getting closer! BB x

Camino II: Wings and Stings

/ Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

Hôpital de Saint-Jacques, Borce. 14.42.

Today’s march was only a little under two kilometres more than yesterday, but boy, did it feel every step of them!

I set out from Sarrance just before 7am, conscious once again that I didn’t want to book it to Borce. I had at the back of my mind that it might be sensible to push on to Urdos, if only to save me some mileage during the long climb up to Somport tomorrow, but I’m very aware that I have to keep these legs of mine in decent shape for six weeks, so no unnecessary bursts of speed or marathon days for me, thank you.

Much of the Camino today followed precarious paths along the river or the road. Arguably, the road stretches were considerably safer: rockfalls and erosion have conspired to make the cross-country sections of the road rather dangerous. Some thoughtful soul had fixed sturdy metal cords to the cliff wall for balance, but it’s plain enough that this section of the Camino sees considerably less traffic than the others.

This is most obvious in the jungle of thorns and nettles that grow about the path. For most of the morning I had to tread a jaunty path through the stinging undergrowth (overgrowth might be a better term), moving with the precision of a mountain goat to avoid the worst of them – especially when the alternative was a steep plunge into the rocky riverbed far below. I didn’t get particularly lucky, as the scars and the great red welts on my shins and neck will testify.

Between them and the mozzies, it’s been a pretty rough start to the Camino as far as bites and stings are concerned!

I crossed the threshold of the morning sun as I reached the outskirts of Bedous, disturbing a whole pack of caged hunting dogs as I did so. Their mournful barking must have been audible across the entire valley. It reminded me of a hunt I heard once when traveling through France, with the curious blast of the horn rising over the excited barks of the hunting dogs. This lot weren’t going anywhere fast, but I had a sense of the primal fear they must invoke in their quarry.

A far more pleasant sound became more and more strident as I entered Bedous: the plaintive whistles of kites. There were quite a few of them gathering in the trees around the Stade de Pierre Leyrat, the town’s rugby pitch (definitive proof that we are still in France). I didn’t give it too much thought as to why until I was flagged down by a local man out for a stroll, who pointed the kites out to me and asked me if I wanted to see a ‘spectacle’. I’m not much in the habit of saying no, so I stuck around to see what he was getting at. He was beaming and kept saying ‘ils sont impatients, ces milans… ils savent qu’il est en retard’.

Just who it was that was running late became apparent a few minutes later, when a man dressed in a red hoodie and one red glove appeared, carrying a bucket in his hand. Within seconds the kites seemed to double in number. There must have been at least forty of them, or even fifty. I haven’t seen so many in one place since the day of the winged ants in Uganda.

A small huddle of locals had gathered to watch, so I just got incredibly lucky arriving just as the kites were gathering. The man in red only apologised that the vultures were missing: ‘c’est formidable, mais ils manquent les vautours’.

They weren’t entirely missing, though. I could see at least two of them riding the thermals up above the peaks of the mountains. And they’d left a trace of their presence behind on the pitch, because when I went to collect the feathers I’d spotted from the stands, I found one which was far too big to belong to a kite. A feather from quite possibly my favourite animal in all creation: I couldn’t have asked for a greater totem to carry with me on the Camino this summer.

In case that wasn’t enough, a shepherd came down out of the hills with his dog and his flock of sheep. They seemed rather non-plussed by the small crowd gathered to watch the kites, and needed quite a bit of chivvying on from the shepherd and his dog before breaking into a run to catch up to him. Is it really a mountain adventure if you don’t see something like this?

Leaving Bedous and its kites behind, I followed the Camino about forty minutes later out of town and into the mountains. The road cut straight through a formidable gorge before winding a twisting path through via an EDF hydroelectric power station, fed by a pair of huge pipes running right up to the top of the mountains. The place seemed to be in full flow, but the only soul I could see was a woman smoking a cigarette outside the gates.

The following hour or so can only be described as an ordeal. After a brief stop in the woods, the Camino all but disappeared, and I had to improvise a path through several cattle fields. The cattle were nowhere to be seen, so their attendants – the murderous horseflies – turned their attention on me instead. And damn, they were persistent. For the best part of forty minutes or so I had to swing my baseball cap left and right like a medieval flail to keep the buggers off, and still they followed me, swarming about my head and legs through field and forest, determined to get a stab at me.

I think one of them got through, but it was hard work, flailing my arms around for so long. I guess they got as much of a workout as my legs today.

They only left me alone once I reached the cattle, at which point they must have decided that there were far easier targets than the fool with the baseball cap who had wandered carelessly into their lair.

It was quite a relief to see the road again. There wasn’t much traffic because of the repairs they’re making to the road surface, which was focused on the exact spot where the Camino rejoins the road. With any luck, that will mean they’re finished with the section between Borce and Urdos, which pilgrims have been catching the bus to avoid over the last few weeks.

The signs for Borce told a story of their own. It’s believed to come from an Occitan word, bòrça, which means farm or hamlet, but its phonic similarity to the French word for bear – ours – seems to have left a mark in its identity. Bears feature prominently in town, from local artwork and murals to the official signage on the road. And it’s this last that is the most interesting, because on both signs announcing the turnoff for Borce, you can quite clearly see the impact of a shotgun blast.

It could have been an accident, but the fact that it appears on the second sign – and only on the image of the bear – confirms that this is a local act of protest against the reintroduction of bears to the Pyrenees, after the last native bear was shot in 2004. The bears are back, thanks to conservation efforts involving the considerable population of bears in Slovenia, and they’re actually growing in number, but that’s not something that’s been welcomed by everyone.

When I was a boy, my parents took me on holiday to Les Cabannes, a mountain town on the eastern side of the French Pyrenees. There, they’d daubed the words ‘Non aux ours’ – no bears – in huge yellow letters on many of the roads (or rather, as I remember it, ours aux non, as they’d painted it in such a way that you’d read the words as you drove forward).

That was around fifteen years ago. The fury is still raw, with a local 81-year-old hunter jailed for four months for killing a bear that attacked him while he was out hunting in the mountains.

Spain has a similar problem with wolves, with one Cantabrian town leaving the severed heads of a local wolfpack on the steps of the town hall as a warning to those who would try to bring the wolf back from the edge of extinction. It’s been hundreds of years since we drove the wolf and the bear out of their homes in Europe, but the ancient fear we harbour towards these beautiful animals is still painfully present, so long as we try to share their world.

But I’m doing Borce a disservice. The village is tremendously charming, and full of running water – the most important amenity after such an arduous trek. Christian met me by one of the fountains, having lately returned from Canfranc; he and Miguel had caught the bus to the Spanish border this morning to see the impressive station, and Miguel had decided to press on from there, while Christian returned to Borce as his last stop before his journey home tomorrow. The two fellows have been a jolly presence for the first three days of the Camino, and I shall miss their company. Fortunately, it looks as though I won’t be alone for long, as there were quite a few pilgrims in Borce. It must be its status as the first (and last) stop after the train terminus in Bedous before Somport, the starting point of the Camino Aragonés.

So this time tomorrow – with any luck – I shall be in Spain. To celebrate, I had a Borçoise crêpe at the Auberge de l’Ours, following a tip-off Christian had received from the bus driver. It really was quite spectacular, and I couldn’t have left France without having one of these delicious French specialities.

Well, that’s quite enough for one day. There’s no WiFi here, so I’m relying on data to get this through to you. It’ll cost me, I’m sure, but that’s what all the hard work over the last year is for, right? That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. À demain! BB x

For the Sport of Your Own Crows

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My phone is telling me I walked some twenty-five kilometres today. After trekking to Three Bridges Station there and back on foot, various perambulations through Reading and London and walking the Combe Gibbet Circular, I can’t say I’m surprised. What I can say is that I bloody well ought to learn to drive, because it’s frankly ridiculous how much of the world I could be exploring at weekends which is just too far away to reach on foot. Dammit.

Fortune favours the bold, which is another way of saying if you want to get lucky, you have to make your own luck. Fortunately, today’s little outing got off to a cracking start with luck knocking on my door. With the kids off site this weekend, the grounds were eerily quiet, even for a Sunday morning. I guess that’s why one of the forest’s more secretive residents made it all the way up onto the main drive this morning.

Muntjac deer are such fascinating little creatures. They keep some of our boys up at night with their barking in the summer, and unlike some deer species they’re quite fearless if you cross paths with one in the wild: I’ve had what can only be called a stand-off with a buck in the woods on my way into town more than once (and probably with the same individual). This one didn’t hang around for long, and if I’d not happened to look out of the window as I was getting dressed I’d probably have missed it.

I managed to make it out into the windswept wilds of Berkshire this weekend. I haven’t been up that way since a school retreat to Daoui a few years ago, and I remember feeling spellbound by the place then (well, I was certainly spellbound by the evening prayers, that much is true). On the way, signs that the year is very much on the turn were everywhere. Masses of frogspawn in the usual spots in the forest. Crocuses pushing up through the bracken as the snowdrops wilt away. The explosive chattering of a roving band of siskins in the treetops. And, Berkshire being Berkshire, red kites absolutely everywhere. I swear I saw more kites than pigeons today.

Climbing high up onto the downs above the hamlet of Inkpen, I even heard my first skylark of the year, merrily singing its heart out as it soared skywards. I haven’t seen any swallows or martins yet, but spring is certainly well on the way.

Standing tall upon the summit of Inkpen Beacon is a lonely-looking structure that can be seen for miles around: the Combe Gibbet. As we climbed towards it, my dear friend and learned guide Kate (one half of the dynamic duo that were Langlesby Travels) regaled me with its dark history: as the story goes, it was built in the year 1676 for the hanging of local murderers George Bromham and Dorothy Newman after the double murder of Bromham’s wife and son, the only obstacles to their unrequited love. For Bromham’s infidelity and the brutality of their actions – they supposedly bludgeoned the mother and child to death before hiding the bodies in a nearby dew pond – they were hanged by the neck in Winchester and their bodies displayed high upon the hilltop for all to see. Apparently the sight could be seen from “several counties”, which seems a bit of a stretch, though it really did feel like you were on top of the world up there on Inkpen Beacon. It’s always an incredible feeling when you’re looking down on the raptors wheeling through the air below.

I was particularly keen to see the gibbet because I’m currently looking into the Great Plague of Seville and the curious habits of the plague doctors of the 17th century. There – I’m sure you’ve got that image in your head already: the broad-rimmed hat, the long, heavy black robes, leather gloves and – of course – the sinister, raven-beaked mask. It’s hardly surprising that the plague doctor became associated with despair. I’ve read somewhere that when Venice was devastated by the plague, the bird-like plague doctors were quite a common sight along its canals. I’ll have to do some exploring to that effect when I’m out there in just over a month’s time.

We were followed on the way down the Beacon by one of the Combe’s kites, wheeling lazily in the spring sunshine, its forked tail steering it effortlessly over our heads without a single wingbeat. I’ve always been in awe of kites. If it weren’t for the utter majesty of the griffon vulture, I might well hold the kite close to my heart as my favourite bird of all. It’s certainly a bird that’s been a part of my life for years, from the black kites of the Raya Real to the termite-hunting horde that haunted the Bishop’s Residence in Lira, Uganda, almost a decade ago. A solitary raven drifted mightily on the wind on the way home, a couple of hares skidded up the banks and out of sight as we passed, and a bullfinch was singing its mournful song from the hedgerow as we reached Kate’s car. Berkshire’s an expensive part of the UK to live for various reasons, but I never knew just how healthily wild it was until today. I guess the downs I can see from my window are every bit as breath-taking, if I could only reach them somehow. Still – that’s something to look forward to, I suppose.

Walking home in the dark, I almost had a conversation with a fox. A vixen, I think it was – it didn’t have that long face with the sunken eyes that dog foxes do. She froze in the middle of the track like wild things sometimes do, and if a man hadn’t come by walking his dog, I could have sworn we might have gone on looking at each other. Dogs and foxes have something of a chequered past, though, and at the first sound of the approaching mutt it was off into the verge and gone without a trace.

Today was a wild day, and wild days are always easy to write about when you’re as big a nature nut as I am. Write what you know, I suppose. Now if only there weren’t already a famous nature writer called BB, I might just squeeze my way into that very cramped market. Since when was BB short for Denys Watkins-Pitchford, anyway? BB x