Spain Again 4, In-between days, Insects and Animals.

This is a bit out of sequence but I just wanted to remember shorter walks and some of the fantastic flora and fauna in an around Nerja.

So we have had a few short outings. We climbed to Castillo Lizar above Frigliana. I visited this with Carl and Alison too on the aborted trip to El Fuerte. I thought the girls would like the butterflies and flowers along with the views of the village.

It’s a short steep climb to an area that clearly had a sort of structure or earthwork on it at some time, I couldn’t find anything about it. At the top someone has made a pebble labyrinth which was fun.

On some of our walks we saw Swallowtail Butterflies and there are a few different varieties, Wall brown Butterflies, Clouded yellows, marble whites and one occasion some sort of Blue. Margaret is our expert on these as she has a special interest and a hawks eye. The butterfly pictures are hers.

I thought a cicada was a sort of cricket and we saw a huge cricket on the first day but, they are not. They are more like a giant frog hopper and make a tremendous trill. We’ve seen a few flying and they look quite frightening.

Although Fred the Gecko disappeared we had a much larger one on our patio one evening.

On one occasion we saw these weird creatures (below) and I had to message Maria (of the Lanzarote trip 2018) to help identify it. It’s a Royal Oil Beetle. Chris’s reaction was complete revulsion and mine was complete fascination.

We have seen many lizards, usually darting into the undergrowth. Vicky and I really wanted to see a snake.

After Vicky and Anna left, the rest of us went to Burriana beach for a swim. It wasn’t rough and the tides are not quite like ours but, there is a sort of sand and gravel ledge in the water so sometimes it’s tricky getting in and out. On this occasion I was upended like Alison had been and it took me ages to get in properly. Once in, it was great and I was waiting for Clare when I saw man gesturing and shouting ‘snake!’ I looked to my right and saw a large (3 ish) black snake on the water….. I  yelled to Clare to not get in and you’ve never seen me get out so quick!

The snake (head up) was being pulled by the slight current. A man told us in Spanish that it was a sea snake and very poisonous. What tosh! There are no sea snakes in the Mediterranean. It’s clearly fallen in off the rocks. Its head was up initially but getting lower, I suspect it was getting exhausted. Clare went to warn other swimmers. I do hope it made to land ok and not been killed if it did make it.