November in Seville, the Hot, the Cold and the Butterflies

November has been a hard month. It is becoming a mix of dates of friends passing and friend’s birthdays, including my own. Like the seasons the end of the year is approaching and the years go by. But while we are here lets do our best to enjoy and sow seeds for the future.

Butterflies in November in Seville

The Alcazar

I am in Seville for two nights. Our favourite and local city. It is just over an hour away from the Sierra Aracena. Somos turistxs hoy! I am also reading an incredible novel called Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin.

Autumn in the Sierra Aracena about an hour from Sevilla but much higher up and colder. Our home.

We are staying in the Hotel Simon, once a casa grande of a rich Seville family, probably shipping or merchant wealth. But from the 1930s became a hotel. Today for a reasonable price you can enjoy its tiled splendours. And just walk out into the centre of Seville and come face to face with the giant Cathedral frontage.

The cathedral and Giralda

Patio of Hotel Simon

Our walk today!

First past the market selling all kinds of figures for the nativity story of Bethlehem or Belen. This is quite a collection that builds up for people here. Some villages do a ‘living Belen’ as in a village near us called Linares.

Artisan figures and models for the Nativity

We walk up to the university which was the old tobacco factory of the Carmen opera fame. Now you can walk in and possibly through and feel student life all around you.

University life and lectures. Resistance, repression and survival in Seville in the 40s and 50s

From the University we cross the road by the main theatre where renovation walk is ongoing and then into the Plaza de Espana park. There is fun with the rowing of boats and serious commitment to women’s rights with the poster display for International Woman’s day.

Plaza de Espana and Recognition of Women’s Rights

We watch an attempt at a wedding photo shoot and am glad we asked. We thought she was an Indian bride dressed in the traditional red with all the bead work. No, it was for a Gitano wedding. And of course the romany and Spanish gypsy links are from long ago in the north of India and Pakistan. And listen in to the stamping footwork of flamenco.

Wedding Scenes

From here we walk through the park and have tapas away from the central tourist part. Rested and full of garbanzos, cerveza and ensaladilla we walk through the Plaza de Americas. The archeology museum is closed but the Museo de arte y costumbres is open. We rest with the butterflies and orange lanterna. Painted Ladies. It could be summer. Pigeons abound in one place for food and parakeets squawk about in the trees. Eucalyptus and parakeets and sunshine warmth. We really could be in the southern hemisphere. But the plane trees are changing colour and there is a chill on the shade and at night

We walk back by the river where Seville is ready with an ice rink and fairground for Christmas fun. And a strange glass container for eating churros and chocolate with the Torre de Oro in the background

Along the Rio Guadalquivir

Saludos from Sevilla with all its history, art, culture and natural beauty built up around the grand river Guadalquivir. From the Moorish power base of the Alcazar and Islamic rule, through the colonial Spanish architecture and build to impress, to the more nuanced post Franco Spain, a modern democracy with rights, values and standards at its heart. Ready hopefully to tackle the next global problem of climate change. Drought is not new to Andalucia and water is a blessing. However, the drought and high temperatures are longer and the water levels lower.

The rivers flowing by Seville and into the Atlantic and the Donana wetlands

There is such beauty on this planet created by human hand and by nature. Let’s enjoy while we can and leave this world safer for those who come next. Lets watch our water consumption and keep the rivers flowing for wildlife too.

Notice in our hotel bathroom. But in the Sierra where the water comes from many village water supplies ran dry this summer.

Time to celebrate too. I am attending the book launch of an anthology of short stories this Saturday in London. Evergreen is the title. ‘Until we are Ever Green’ is my story about a neglected silver fir Christmas tree.

The fir tree section of Kew Gardens

Lets hope The Call of the Wild Valley gets published soon too. It’s on the list!

Poem 16: The Madroño Tree and the Two Tail Pasha; 26 Poem Challenge.

Greetings to all and to Dverse Poets on their 8th anniversary. Am linking this to open link night with Mish; https://dversepoets.com/   And really pleased to find Earthweal and their challenges with a nature focus; https://earthweal.com/

Life coming out of lockdown in Spain has been interesting and busy in many ways as we can now decide to go out more and visit friends and family.  Some normality but also it is very strange and strained too. We hope all is going well for so many of you in many different places.

There has also been more work to do on the finca as we finally been able to have help from others. There have been some blessings in our retreat from society but  sadness too as we are personally  touched by loss and at another loss as we watch and read too much incompetent managing of a health crisis.

.This poem on my 26 poem challenge is structured around my form of 26 lines, 12 for the tree and 12 for the butterfly and two finishing lines to comment on both. It is based on our experience of having to cut back some trees from the house and knowledge of butterfly habitats and the plants and trees they need.

The Madroño Tree and the Two Tail Pasha

Arbutus Unedo, Strawberry tree, Madroño

Today is trim time for trees

But not scissor light snips

More motor power and deep cuts

Ear muffs on for heavy chain whirs

If you could only keep your fine fans

Of branches away from our earth tiled roof

I would not feel the hurt of habitat loss

The screams of the leaves as they dash

Against the cool cement white rendered walls

The birds will not be pleased

Nor the butterfly that some call

The foxy emperor or Pasha.

 

 

Two Tail Pasha, Charaxes jasius, El Baja or Cuatro Colas. ( 4 tails!)

Here you must lay your eggs

To hatch into the worm with two horns.

 

 

 

How do you know this tree is best?

You do not need a nest

To carefully care as each of yours

Must hatch alone. Make its own munch

Through tough leaves.

Tough lives taken at the point of a beak

Or hang cocooned for days

Till horns transform, two tails of wings emerge.

So bright, so fair, move me to gasp

At change so rare.

 

From dark places, burst leaves, break wings.

Reach out for life, lived briefly, in the light.

 

Two tailed pasha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the ongoing climate crisis my poetry challenge is to help conservation charities restore nature and prevent biodiversity loss. We must have more trees and wild places. It will help us too.

I know there are a lot of struggling charities at the moment but if you can support my efforts I and theRSPB/BirdLife International would be grateful. I am halfway through now and every little helps me write more!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/georginas-26-challenge-i-am-going-to-write-26-poems-about-the-wild-flora-and-fauna-here-on-our-woodland-finca-in-spain-i-will-post-these-on-my-blog

 

Gardens and Butterflies

David Attenborough is asking folk in the U.K. to help with a butterfly survey. The numbers of British butterflies seem to be going into a decline. There has been a lot of interest in gardening for wildlife and it was hoped that bees and butterflies could be recovering but there have been a range of factors affecting numbers and particular species.
Here are some of the butterflies I was fortunate enough to photograph at Navasola in May and June. I love the wild plants and flowers here and these seem to support a variety of wildlife but I have been delighted that my efforts in creating some small patches of garden have not only paid off with a range of flowers but also brought these beautiful butterflies close by.
Last year I was given some Sweet Williams by a friend nearby. These were planted last year and survived August heat and bloomed beautifully from the end of April to June. I hope these will self seed but I have collected seeds too. I may also be lucky and get a second show of flowers from the same plants next year. Seeing how these flowers have attracted a range of butterflies and bees means they are a must for any wildlife garden and nature lover.

Please let me know any hardy flowers that have attracted butterflies in your gardens and parks. Of course the eggs and larva also need very specific plants too and these are often wild ones that are seen as weeds. Enjoy!

Who is looking at who? A Cardinal in the Sierra Aracena.

A newly hatched Cardinal spreading its wings out to dry.

A fritillary we struggled to fully identify. Visited at same time as the Cardinal.

Swallowtail heaven!

A Meadow Brown keeping an eye on me!

All taken by me but with a LUMIX camera borrowed from my naturalist friend and artist.

A Flutterby of Butterflies. Summer 2015 in the Sierra Aracena.

This year from May to early July has not only been a feast of wild flowers for me to discover and try to identify but also of so many different butterflies. My working walk into my allotment area is bordered with wild scabious which I had decided not to cut back. I was rewarded with being able to walk back and forth through butterflies resting and sometimes arguing over key flowers. It seems to be the wild scabious that they love. With its long stems it bounces up and down as you pass. It also moves gently with the butterflies and the wind and this does not make for easy photographs. A lot have been blurred. After my working walk with the wheelbarrow and scythe I walked up to the Era in the early evening.here we can check on water levels in the deposit and decide whether to pump up more before I start to water. I was flabbergasted by the flutterby of so many more butterflies up there. But then there were so many more flowers. More field scabious, but also pink centuary, and yellow curry plant and many different grasses. The Era had been a levelled out stony threshing area for grain. Possibly used back in the 1920s. We had cleared it several years ago, strimmed and scythed. However, as there were so many flowers on this area last year I decided to do nothing in September. This year I have been rewarded with more flowers and a terrific range of butterflies, albeit with photos all mainly on the scabious. Apart from the swallowtail which seems to like the bushes near the house and the cement left over from the water butt. Hopefully, it will not be a casualty of human so called progress. We hope we are nearly done with any more awful cement mixing and will have a fairly sustainable way of life and comfortable house.   .

The era above the house. Once used for threshing and now seems to be a butterfly haven.

Painted Lady on Scabious.

Wall or Meadow Brown?

Clouded Yellow

Cardinal, large on Scabious!

Brimstone on Scabious

Probably a clouded yellow as can see the dots!

Scarce swallowtail.

Must be our favourite flower. Wild Field Scabious in Southern Spain. Sierra Aracena.

One butterfly missing from the photo shoot is the two tailed pasha . This beautiful butterfly needs the madrono, arbutus unedo, as a place for its eggs. There are plenty of these around the house but maybe this year there have been too many disturbances. There are also many more places for this bewitching butterfly and its peculiar desire for urine. One of my last photos some years ago were of it drinking my dog’s pee. And sorry can’t find that one to add to the collection. However quite pleased with the LUMIX camera and the details. But can’t get hold of the photo editing to crop it and show the eyes and delicate wings yet. Life here in the Sierra is far more comfortable with our solar power but we still haven’t solved our wifi access unless in a bar or the local library. But the library is a cool break as the heat of the summer is rising well into the mid 30s here.

Wings of a butterfly to wildness of wild boar: Close encounters of the natural kind.

 

What is it that makes an encounter with a wild animal so fascinating and wonderful. It seems to me like a privilege that you are able to see one and at a safe distance in the case of the more threatening ones! We know there are boar on the Finca. We see evidence of their digging, in particular around the path up to the studio.It is a rocky and grassy path and full of wild flowers such as candytuft in the summer. I also had to go to some expense to have a boar proof fence around my new Huerta or allotment patch for vegetables. Fidel who helps us with the chestnut harvest once asked if he could hunt them. Mr T rang me up and got my most adamant reply NO! So they are quite happy here being destructive with the rocky walls, digging up the earth and making it rough to walk over, clearing pathways through the undergrowth and finding enough to eat. In Spain there is a boar hunting season and we had a man chase a boar though the Finca with his dogs once. I only saw the undergrowth move fast but later a dog with a collar and bell appeared and for a while we were wondering what to do with the dog. There are No hunting signs around the campsite and these are areas where people live and walk so again the most dangerous animal is a man with a gun.

Yesterday as I got out of the car to unlock the gate, about 2 on. Rainy afternoon. I pushed the gate open on one side and looked down towards the crest of a hill dipping down the path. For me it seemed like a great big dog appeared, blackish, about the size of a German shepherd dog. I thought at first it was maybe our friend Rainers’s dog but it looked rather grey around the muzzle .
It turned up onto the path and looked to cross. I realised then it must be a boar. It stopped on the path and turned its head round. For a few moments I was staring at the boar and the boar was staring at me. I must have been very still and the boar was motionless until it turned its head agin and wandered off across the path. Mr T was quite indignant that I hadn’t told him and he got out of the car and went down the path to see if the boar was still nearby. He had never seen one on the Finca but had several years ago taken some pictures of some young ones with one of those night automatic infra red cameras. I think it must have been a male and I have twice in the past almost run over one crossing a main road. This is a reminder to me that they are big but not usually about during the daytime. I might now have to take my walks around the Finca with my Spanish boar stick and thudding the ground with it but of course that might ensure I have no more close wild encounters. Usually these wild ones keep well clear of us if we are not to be prey!

The other close encounter was with a butterfly. It was a beautiful evening with the sun just about to disappear behind the hill to the west of our small boat shaped valley. The shadows of the chestnuts in the Navasola west fields were getting longer but I saw a lump of old broken off chestnut with the sun shining fully on it. It looked like a warm place to sit and soak up the last rays of the sun. Then something fluttered by, surely not, a butterfly in January? As I tried to follow it and perhaps identify it it landed on that piece of old wood. A good spot in the sun for a butterfly to warm its wings before a cold night. I couldn’t move but just stared down at it. It’s wings were large with bright red. It stayed there quite a while. I even thought I might have been able to go back for my camera! The butterfly and I just warming ourselves in the sun. When it finally flew off I went and sat on the wood where the butterfly had warmed its wings. I stayed there until the sun dipped down enjoying a time of quiet reflection on small things and inner delight. Ahh… A red admiral, that had been hibernating over winter and had woken with the warmth of a January sunny day here in Andalucia. My photo is of one taken at the Martin Mere Wetlands centre in Lancashire in the UK. Need to go back to my iPhone in my pocket for those sudden photo opportunities when least expecting a close encounter!

What’s a Clouded Yellow?

Lots of them here in Southern Spain and are considered indigenous to here. So European too! Must have flown a long way!

A Tramp in the Woods

An immigrant species from North Africa. Not especially uncommon, sometimes you get really good years and they are everywhere but I have never photographed them. I have seen them about but not when  I had a camera handy.

This is a female. She is really beautiful when she opens her wings. Golden yellow with a black border. These pictures today are just a tease.

This is the new mission. There is an added problem this time. These Butterflies always settle with their wings closed, you only see them open in flight. We have got to have those open wing shots.

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Fly by butterfly, butterfly fly by!

Much of my work over the past few weeks has been helped along by constant pauses to watch the butterflies so close by along the path. There have been quite a variety but the Cardinal took pride of place and was not bothered by a sweaty woman with a wheelbarrow.

Other butterflies have been the yellow ones, clouded yellow and the cleopatra, and the wood and meadow browns along with some sightings of the two tailed pasha and scarce swallowtail. These have not allowed me to photograph them just yet.