Winter Birding Serrania de Ronda
Winter has encroached on my mountains; autumn’s soft embrace has released its hand on the landscape and submitted almost unnoticed to the cold of winter. The unpredictable has returned, from warm days to biting cold nights, to strong winds, which can herald the long awaited rains, to ashen clouds cloaking the high mountains later to reveal white peaks on the most grand of my mountains. It is a welcomed respite from the searing temperatures of summer that had parched the landscape, turning the views to golden browns for as far as the eye could see, though the large forested areas of evergreen oak beautifully frame the golden colours with their shades of green. Yet through November and December, during the onset of winter, there are so many interesting features to my natural world here in the Serrania de Ronda. These months see the main rutting period for Iberian Ibex Capra pyrenaica hispanica , a time for keeping a sharp eye to the mountainsides. Males now actively seek fema