CHAPTER XL 
SKETCHES OF SPANISH BIRD-LIFE 
Spain is a land where one can enjoy seeing in their everyday 
life those ‘“‘rare” British birds that at home can only be seen in 
books or museums. So far as it can be done in half-a-dozen brief 
sketches, we will endeavour to illustrate this. 
I. An Evenine’s STROLL FROM JEREZ 
Spanish towns and villages are self-contained like the ‘“ fenced 
cities” of Biblical days. The pueblecitos of the sierra show up as a 
concrete splash of white on the brown hillside. Once outside the 
gates you are in the campo=the country. Even Jerez with its 
60,000 inhabitants boasts no suburban zone. Within half an hour’s 
walk one may witness scenes in wild bird-life for the like of which 
home-staying naturalists sigh in vain. We are at our “home- 
marsh,” a mile or two away: it is mid-February. Within fifteen 
yards a dozen stilts stalk in the shallows ; hard by is a group of 
godwits, some probing the ooze, the rest preening in eccentric 
outstretched poses. Beyond, the drier shore is adorned by snow- 
white egrets (Ardea bubulcus), some perched on our cattle, 
relieving their tick-tormented hides. 
Thus, within less than fifty yards, we have in view three of 
the rarest and most exquisite of British birds. And the list can 
be prolonged. A marsh-harrier in menacing flight, his broad 
wings brushing the bulrushes, sweeps across the bog, startling a 
mallard and snipes; there are storks and whimbrels in sight (the 
latter possibly slender-billed curlew), and a pack of lesser bustard 
crouch within 500 yards in the palmettos. From a marsh-drain 
springs a green sandpiper; and as we take our homeward way, 
serenaded by bull-frogs and mole-crickets, there resounds over- 
head the clarion-note of cranes cleaving their way due north. 
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