By Margaret Brown features@algarveresident.com
Margaret Brown is one of the Algarve Resident’s longest standing contributors and has lived in the Algarve for more than 20 years.
While retirement for older folk moves further away like dandelion seeds on the breeze, if this be the ultimate goal of most workers rest assured it is not all one is led to expect.
Having fun as the years go by can be quite tiring as I found during a six-day break a few weeks ago. The roads were rarely straight as we corkscrewed our way up the coast to Milfontes, a pleasant fishing port in Alentejo.
The delightful hotel, where we spent three nights and which was approached past a line of stinking Lixo bins, had few guests and never more than two couples beside ourselves.
From this base, we explored the area through hectares of newly bailed hay and herds of beef cattle with calves at foot. Always drawn to the coast, we paused at Porto Côvo seeking refreshment and discovered the remains of Roman era fortifications reminiscent of World War 1 trenches, cut deep into bed rock.
 An interesting discovery near the Guadiana – a faded red lifeboat. |
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Across a small stretch of water lay the island of Pessegueiro. It emerged during the last glacial period when sea levels dropped by 120metres, being first occupied in the fourth century BC.
During the Roman era a port and fish treatment centre with salt pans was built, the ancient buildings still crowning the island today.
Later we crossed from west to east, staying in Alcoutim at a hotel beside the river Guadiana, a cannon shot from Sanlucar in Spain. Again the pleasant hotel was almost empty and for three nights we dined alone, watched over obtrusively by an assortment of waiters with nothing else to do.
In the course of our wanderings we found two Menhirs dating from about 4,000BC. They were on top of a lonely hill, neatly fenced and accessible, with an explanatory plaque.
Not far from there we happened on a remote hamlet of broken down cottages, the inhabitants of which appeared very poor and actively hostile.
They made it plain that we were most unwelcome and the sooner we left the better.
Returning to the Guadiana through steep winding lanes, we came across an isolated slipway, two fishermen and a small yacht.
On a hill overlooking the water there was a faded red lifeboat of the rollover, watertight design – probably off an old Liner. Painted low on the starboard side was the information “7.50 x 2.70 x 1.20metres. 34 Persons”.
 Resident Jane Rennie’s Red Rump Swallows. |
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Portugal is full of surprises and this relic from another era would surely have a tale to tell as it sat like a latter day Noah’s Ark awaiting the flood.
After six days of concentrated exploration in a very hot car, it was great to be home, having seen much in a short time. Not least the dozens of storks’ nests on custom built poles that lined one road near the Spanish border, their occupants suffering repeated attacks by young adults wishing to take over.
While these birds have for centuries been greatly respected and cherished by the majority of people, the powers that be in Lagos saw fit to demolish several long established nesting sites, especially on old chimneys, which were then fitted with pointed caps.
On the subject of birds in Portugal, in some places they have been shot almost to extinction, therefore why is the Melro or Blackbird now considered fair game?
Having been protected for so long, this season and for a further three years each hunter is allowed a bag of 40 Melros per day.
One of the few song birds left in Algarve, whose regular diet is of insects and the occasional grape, of no nutritional value and unlikely to grace a trophy display being just blood and feathers once shot, it is an aberration.
One can only hope that the Golden Oriel is not next on the menu.
Meanwhile in the Algarve, local resident Jane Rennie has the ongoing delight of watching a pair of Red Rump Swallows as they refresh their characteristic mud nest.
Now into their third year and four successful broods later with another on the way, these birds and their young show no fear of humans as they sit four feet below the long entrance tunnel. At times the hatchlings explore throughout the house. Gaining access through an open door, they take a quick look round kitchen, bedrooms and lounge before exiting from an open window. These superb flyers deserve their nickname of “Spitfires” and like the fighter plane, have had to deal with invaders of their territory.
A pair of Sparrows claimed ‘squatter’s rights’ this spring before the rightful owners had returned from Sub-Saharan Africa.
At first, the homecomers started to add an annex to the main mud hut but changed tactics.
Two young Sparrows had already hatched and first one baby sparrow, and then the other, was thrown to the ground and subsequently died. Rough and rightful justice of the natural world remains hotwired into the human psyche also, however many layers below the surface.
The Red Rumps were ensuring the safety of another generation. This species, classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as being of ‘Least Concern’ is considered to have up to 400,000 breeding pairs and over 1,000,000 individuals in Europe alone.
Unlike the Barn Swallow with its open mud nest and heap of droppings beneath, the Red Rump of the Cecropis family builds a retort shaped chamber from which the juveniles’ defecated sacs are removed as soon as produced. Fastidious friends, please note.
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