Amongst the daisies and in shady spots

Earlier this morning I shared shadows under the tree on my other blog, and looking at that photograph inspired me to read MrB’s notebook from the day I took the shot. It was towards the end of a 7km stroll we had enjoyed in the east Algarve only a few weeks before he died. I had forgotten much of it until I read his journal.

You may spot in this post that quite a few of my photographs are square, and that’s because it is a Squares Month. If you like challenges then find out more here, otherwise keep reading to discover what MrB wrote in his journal about this walk.

The main purpose of his Portuguese day journals were as birding logs;

Large numbers of small birds at the foz end on the meadow, feeding in the bed of daisies – goldfinches, linnets, chiffchaffs, serins. Also saw long tailed tits, stonechats, sardinian warbler, robin, starlings, about 40 azure winged magpies, and a pair of what were probably buzzards. Becky heard and saw the raven pair. Also swallows and crag martins.

But he made no mention of the pair of wagtails and the solitary red-legged partridge, but they were there as I have the photographic evidence. I’d be teasing him if he was here, and he’d be adding to his journal. He often did update it after going through my photographs from the day. I was never allowed to delete anything, even the blurred shots, until he had gone through them as often they helped confirm an identification or enable him to see something he hadn’t seen at the time on the walk.

He did however comment on the flora, and in particular how the spring flowers were just beginning to appear. Always a treat for us flying into an Algarvian spring from an English January. Click on photos in gallery for their names.

His journals may have have focused on nature, where we walked and his birding observations but MrB was often sidetracked by agricultural history too. Remember the posts he wrote. His ‘commented’ means the two of us stopped for quite a while and discussed them.

Threshing floors, used for separating grain from the chaff (husks), were once a traditional part of agricultural life in Portugal and grew significantly in number during the wheat campaign in the 1930s. We have come across abandoned ones throughout the east Algarve. They are open areas, usually circular, and paved with stone or bedrock. They were historically located in elevated, windy spots to facilitate the process of winnowing, where the wind would carry away the lighter chaff as the grain was tossed. MrB is standing on one above, and you’ll spot a second in the gallery below.

This was a short stroll for us but MrB had not been feeling 100%. In hindsight I now know it was his heart, but at the time we just presumed it was a bug or something. Despite the short distance we got a little bit of everything on this walk – history, birds, flora and glorious views.