Remaining denizens of these crags we can but briefly name. A pair of eagle-owls had three young (fully fledged by June 10) in a deep rock-fissure; there were also ravens, many lesser kestrels, and a colony of genets.
III. Oak-Wood and Scrub
Cistus and tree-heath, genista and purple heather that brushes your shoulder as you ride, studded with groves of cork-oak—such was our hunting-field. The reader’s patience shall not be abused by a catalogue of ornithological fact. True, we were studying bird-problems, and at the moment the writer was endeavouring, amidst ten-foot scrub, to locate by its song, a nest of Polyglotta—or was it Bonellii?—when in the depths of osmunda fern was descried something hairy—it was a wild-boar!... Three horsemen armed with garrochas come galloping through the bush—herdsmen rounding-up cattle? But this morning it is a bull they are rounding-up; and a bull that had grown so savage and intractable that his life was forfeit. A crash in the brushwood and we stand face to face. Three minutes later that bull fell dead with two balls in his body; but two others, less well aimed, had whistled past our ears. Those three minutes had been momentous—the choice, it had seemed, lay between horn and bullet. Bird-nesting in Spanish wilds has its serious side.
The afternoon was less eventful. Almost each islanded grove had yielded spoil. We need not specify spectacled, subalpine, and orphean warblers, woodpeckers, woodchats and grey shrikes, nightjars, owls, kestrels, and kites—some prizes demanding patient watching, others a strenuous climb. The last hour had resulted in discovering a nest of booted eagle, two of black, and one of red kites, each with two eggs (the next tree held a nest of the latter containing a youngster near full grown). We had turned to ride homewards when, over a centenarian cork-oak on the horizon, we recognised (by their buoyant flight and white undersides) a pair of serpent-eagles. The grotesque old tree was half overthrown, and on its topmost limb was established the snake-eaters’ eyrie, containing the usual single big white egg—this specimen, however, distinctly splashed with reddish brown. In the same tree were also breeding cushats and doves, a woodpecker with four eggs, and a swarm of bees who made things lively for the climber. One of to-day’s climbs, by the way, had resulted incidentally in the capture of a family of dormice, Lirones avellanos in Spanish, handsome creatures with immense whiskers and arrayed in contrasts of rich brown, black and white.
Half an hour later we descried the unmistakable eyrie of an imperial eagle—a platform of sticks that crowned the summit of a huge cork-oak, the more conspicuous since any projecting twigs that might interrupt the view are always broken off. The eagle, entirely black with white shoulders, only soared aloft when L. was already half-way up. The two handsome eggs we left, though they have since, presumably, added two more “detrimentals” to prey on our partridges. Eagles, so soon as adult, pair for life; but that condition may require several years for full attainment, and in the imperial eagle the adolescent period is passed in a distinctive uniform of rich chestnut. So long ago as 1883, however, we discovered the singular fact that this species breeds while yet (apparently) “immature.” That is, we have frequently found one of a nesting pair in the paler plumage described, while its mate gloried in the rich sable-black of maturity, as sketched on p. 31. This year (1910) we had come across such a couple—they had two eggs on March 15—the male being black, while his partner was parti-coloured. A curious incident had occurred at that nest; at dawn next morning a griffon vulture was discovered asleep close alongside the sitting eagle. But on the arrival of the husband a furious scene ensued! The intruder (whom we acquit of dishonourable intent) was set upon, hustled, and violently ejected from the tree—hurriedly and dishevelled he departed. But conjugal peace was soon restored, and presently the royal pair set out in company for a morning’s hunting.
These resident birds-of-prey breed early. We have found the eagles’ eggs by February 28, buzzards’ on March 12, and red kites’ on March 14.
This spring was remarkable for the numbers of hobbies that passed north during May, sometimes in regular flocks. They often roosted in old kites’ nests, and when disturbed therefrom misled us into a futile climb.
White-tailed or Sea-Eagle (Haliaëtos albicilla).—This does not properly belong to the Spanish zone. We cannot find recorded a single authentic instance of its occurrence in that country, but can supply one ourselves.
In the early days of February 1898 we watched on several occasions an eagle (which at the time we took to be Bonelli’s) wildly chasing the geese that are wont to assemble in front of our shooting-lodge. Splendid spectacles these aerial hunts afforded. The selected goose, skilfully separated from his company, made a grand defence. Fast he flew and far, now low on water, now soaring upwards in widening circle; but all the time gaggling and protesting against the outrage in strident tones that we could hear a mile away. Never, so far as eyesight could reach, did the assailant make good his hold.
Months afterwards—it was before daybreak on December 28 (1898)—the authors lay awaiting the “early flight” of geese at the Puntal, hard by, when an eagle (whether the same or not) appeared from out the gloom, made a feint at No. 1‘s decoy-geese (made of wood), passed on and fairly “stooped” at those of No. 2. A moment later the great bird-of-prey fell with resounding splash, and proved to be (so far as we know) the only sea-eagle ever shot in Spain—a female, weight 12½ lbs., expanse just under 8 feet.