Marsh Harrier

Gloomy grey day today, with a taste of storms about the weather. So we had a morning working at home (will the weeding ever be done??) and headed off to Spain after lunch to go to a bird reserve Mr B had read about. It's right on the coast, just south of Roses on the Costa Brava.

You start off quite a way from the beach and walk down through farmland (fields called 'closes' that flood for part of the year), and marshes to the windswept, empty, wave-lashed beach. There are lots of hides along the way, and it is from one of these that we saw the Marsh Harriers. There were four of them, possibly all juveniles, swooping around together over the ponds and reed beds.

We also saw an osprey, lots of cranes, a Little Egret, lots of fallow deer, and the usual array of ducks and small birds that move too fast to be identified.

The kids coped admirably with the long walk. They were slightly bemused, however, by our combination of broken Spanish, French and English and much miming as we tried to explain what we had seen to a group of elderly Catalonians who had the misfortune to ask us if it was worth the walk. You try miming "Marsh Harrier" in Spanish, when the only word you can remember that is half way relevant is 'pato' (duck - he's a character on a kids show). Not easy.

Home then for rabbit stew and a large lump of well-earned chocolate.