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Solar Houses and 5 cms of tarmac … oh, and a nice new article too!

No posts for some time so I appologise to avid readers of this blog – you’ll probably have deducted that I’ve been a tad busy and you’d be right.

We took the long-dreamed-of decision a couple of weeks ago to jump one rung up the ladder of self-sufficiency and turn ourselves completely over to solar water heating, so I’ve been up to my elbows in bricks and mortar recently building the new solar house which’ll store all the complicated equipment and which’ll have the panels on the roof. Now it’s finished and we wait for the panels and heat exchangers to turn up and be plumbed in …



Tarmac-depth-P6210013, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

What else is new? Well, Portuguese TV came down and interviewed us about the road and quick as a flash there was a crew down here digging up the road and filling in the worst holes, but now they’ve gone again and left us with long stretches of road that’s flatter, yes, but with no tarmac at all. Plus ça change … You can see why the roads around here constantly fall apart by the photo above … 8 ton eucalyptus lorries thundering along on top of 5 cms of tarmac with no hard-core at all …

Now I’ve got to get cracking on the lecture I’m giving at the Birdfair in Rutland next month. Submission date’s today so I really must get on, but I’ll leave you with a lovely article written recently by the On-Line Travel Journal, so read all about it here …

An early morning spin

I had to pop up to town a week or so ago, and, to beat the heat of the day as much as the traffic, left the Quinta at 5.30 for a ride up there on the bike.

I thought it’d be interesting to make a note of what I saw in the first hour’s drive, passing through 6 villages and covering 60 miles of the ride, (about 100 kms), so here it is …

Regarding the Natural World there was
1 Barn Owl
1 Buzzard
1 Hare
1 Rabbit
4 Storks
5 Cattle Egrets
5 Red Legged Partridges
3 Jays
10 Blackbirds
and many LBJs, mostly Crested, Thekla and Wood Larks, Goldfinches, Linnets, Cirl Buntings, Stonechats etc.

Nothing spectacular there one might think, but what always stuns me on these early morning rides is the amount of human presence noticeable in this area, and that morning was no exception.

In that first hour’s ride there was
1 lorry carrying bricks
1 lorry carrying wood
1 small van
1 pick-up
1 moped,
3 men, (two together and 1 individually)
and 1 dog ….

I wonder how many other places in Europe would have this kind of list! What a joy to be able to live here!

Eclipse-2757



Eclipse-2757, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

The recent Lunar Eclipse threw up this particular oddity – a new Blue Planet. Any of you know what it could be? There was nothing there and only when the shot was downloaded off the camera did the blue object became visible. A mystery …

Southern Gatekeeper-5653

The weather this Spring has been gorgeous, hot sunny days interspersed with a few rainy ones here and there. Wetter than normal and the rain seems to have lasted a great deal later than usual which has kept everything green and fresh.
Loads of food around for all of nature to take advantage of and we’ve had great fun observing it all.
One of the nicest places around the Quinta is the little Cortebrique Valley about three miles away, and I’ve spent many happy hours there during the past few months. It has a mixture of habitats from scrub to grassy meadows to kitchen gardens and fields of maize and wheat to patches of cork oaks and woodland. I’ve posted quite a few pictures of birds I’ve seen there on the Quinta’s Birding website, and it’s sometimes difficult to know where that blog ends and this one begins – or vice versa – but this beautiful Southern Gatekeeper belongs here I think.
There were quite a few of them yesterday in a small patch of wood, flitting about early on in the morning warming up; this is a male.
He’s smaller than the female, (only about 15mm wide rather than 20mm), who lacks that beautiful pattern on the top forewing shown above. The pattern is actually scent glands called androconia that are used in attracting the female. They feed on grasses and like it hot with dappled shade, so the Cortebrique Valley suits them right down to the ground. They fly in one brood from June onwards throughout the summer, extending from Portugal eastwards to Turkey and along the north African shore, though apparently absent from the eastern Mediterranean.
I got most of the above information, including the original id, from Matt Rowlings and his excellent website, so “Thanks, Matt!”. If you’re interested in butterflys I can heartily recommend a visit.

When will they mend this road? I’ll keep you posted!

N266-0371, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

Over the last few months they’ve been doing some repair work on the railway that runs through Santa Clara, and there’ve been huge lorries moving tons and tons of soil and rock from one place to another nearby.

All well and good, but the cost has been that the main road near us has simply disintegrated, and the picture above is just one of the many pot-holes around here.

Flora standing behind it gives some idea of the size, but that pile of earth in front of her isn’t at the side of the road – it’s right in the middle, and the difference between the bottom of the hole and the top of the pile is over half a meter!

We’ve talked to the Junta, (the equivalent of the Parish Council), we’ve complained to the Câmara, (the equivalent of the County Council) and we’ve made an official complaint to Estradas de Portugal, (the national road maintenance body), complete with photographs etc etc and nothing seems to be happening at all, so please, if you’re going to be visiting us anytime soon, TAKE CARE or you’ll be liable to lose your sump, wheels, tyres – or even the whole car if it gets much worse.

It’ll be interesting to see when something’s actually done about it; I’ll keep you posted!

A ray of sunshine

In these days of economic crisis and general doom and gloom it’s easy at my wildly advanced age to become ever more Colonel Blimpish and whinge and moan constantly about how hard everything is, how nothing seems to work, how expensive Life is becoming, how, “it wasn’t like that when I was a kid” etc etc, and I do my fair share.
Recently, for example, I’ve been beating my gong about the ridiculous bureaucracy we have to fight our way through here in general – and principally the outrageous price that Turismo de Portugal has seen fit to burden all of us Birding Guides with by making it obligatory to have a license if we’re to take anyone birdwatching. 950 euros plus extra insurance; totally obscene in my opinion.
Y’see what i mean? There I go again; whinge whinge, moan moan, grumble grumble, and all the time my eyebrows become bushier, my nose redder, my hearing more selective and my blood pressure rises to dangerous levels, so it’s nice to balance this constant gripe with a tale of success, a tale to lighten your mood, a tale to bring a ray of sunshine into your life.
I don’t suppose this’ll help the great majority of the readers of this blog, but here y’go anyway …

To start with you must remember that the Quinta’s in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest town a good 45 minutes drive away; this has its advantages in that we live in gorgeous countryside with a view to die for and, apart from the bureaucracy, (careful Frank, keep your eye on the ball), very little stress, but it also has its disadvantages in that it’s a long way to go if an emergency takes one by surprise … like this morning when one of my teeth decided it didn’t want to be part of me anymore and took a hike. Saturday morning, oh blimey, now what do I do?
Well, more in hope than anything else, I rang our “local” dentist, a great practice in Odemira running under the name of Juvenal Patriarca, (for you local bods, 283 322678, juvenalpatriarca@gmail.com), and was surprised when I was answered politely straight away. Explaining the situation I was told to come in, and an hour later was in the chair, with the job done within 45 minutes, at a very reasonable rate too, just 60 euros.
Brilliant! What an antidote to an irascible Colonel! Long may their practice thrive and I take my hat off to ’em and thank them sincerely. 10 o’clock tooth goes awol; 11.45 new one in place at dentist 45 minutes away. Stunning, efficient, friendly, well-priced service; I’m not used to it here at all. Perhaps they could have a word with Turismo de Portugal?
And what does that have to do with the picture of the Great Spotted Cuckoo above? Nothing at all, but I hope that the picture makes you feel as happy as I do today! Have a nice one!

Why Two-tailed Pashas make you thirsty …

As the days become warmer so more and more Butterflys, Moths, Dragonflies and Crickets appear. The Cicadas have still to appear in large numbers, but every day seems to bring something new to our attention.
This morning it was this Two-tailed Pasha, warming up in the early morning sunshine. It’s the largest European Butterfly and the food plant is the Arbutus bush or “Strawberry Tree”.
Those markings on its under-wing are pretty vivid and should bring it to the attention of all the nearby birds, but maybe it doesn’t taste too good as we make our local hooch out of the same bush – it’s pretty powerful stuff!
Called Medronho it’s drunk out of tiny glasses at any hour of the day, but normally accompanied by a slice of cake or a biscuit or two. The first one’s enough to make your eyes water, but the second goes down easily enough and the third even easier – by the fourth you’ll be past caring!

Another first for the Quinta’s “Birdwatching Holidays in Portugal”!

Red-knobbed-Coot-1206, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

We noticed a real rarity in SPEA‘s recent newsletter to us which we received last week. A Red-knobbed Coot had been seen on a lake close to a village near our normal Plains Birdwatching tour, so we decided to try to find it, and on the third lake we checked there it was.
It’s not often I find a lifer nowadays on my “home patch” and all the more exciting for that …

Wide-mouthed Bass World Champion, Paulo Jorge Ramos, makes the Quinta’s “Fishing Holidays in Portugal” a success!

IMG_1049, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

The Wide-mouthed Bass World Champion, Paulo Jorge Ramos, lives in Santa Clara and is regularly taking the Quinta’s guests fishing for this marvelous sports species this year.
This picture shows him picking up Christophe and Alexandre Normand from France at the Quinta’s dock for a day’s outing.
Christophe later said that the day had been “Splendide! Excellent! Mieux que je ne le pensais!” And of Paulo Jorge? “Il connait très bien le lac et ses poissons, n’est-ce pas? Magnifique!”

Shock and Horror as Portugal’s Financial Crisis cuts length of 25th April Fireworks display

As Portugal’s financial crisis begins to bite, so there are signs that the authorities are beginning to tighten their belts, and one manifestation of this was the length of Odemira’s fireworks display to mark the Carnation Revolution of 1974 – when the country kicked out the Fascist regime of Salazar and Caetano and swung wildly to the left, (the least bloodthirsty revolution in recorded history), – being reduced from its usual half hour duration to an extravaganza of just 15 minutes.
Sad to see it so small of course, as this date was the defining moment in recent Portuguese history, and more so in this area than in many others in Portugal, and thus deserves to be remembered and celebrated here more than anywhere else, but the times they are a’changing  and we simply hope that the Câmara, (our local County Council), will still be able to save some money to repair the roads around here which are falling to bits at an ever-increasing rate.
Anyway, enough of my whingeing! It’s great to see that, even if it has to be shortened to suit the times, the display continues its normal high quality and I post the above for the many fans of this spectacle who couldn’t make it down to celebrate with us this weekend.