I promised Fiona at Coombe Mill that I’d have a Spanish theme for a Country Kids post following our trip to my parents last month – well here it is. Monkey is my Spanish Country Kid, enjoying time with Guru Gramps, our resident bug hunter and his Granny.
Monkey’s first bug hunting trip was last November when we visited Spain for Dad’s 70th birthday. It seems strange that my blog wasn’t even born when this photo was taken.
Monkey loved walking in the campo (countryside) with Gramps and his butterfly net. It was at that point I realised that I should spend some quality time with Monkey exploring the natural world around us when we got home.
My parents live about an hour away from Sevilla in Andalucia. They live in a small town surrounded by mountains and olive groves. It’s a wonderful place to explore on a sunny day. You walk out of their little cul-de-sac and turn right and you are in the campo.
My Dad has a permit to collect and record insects on behalf of Sevilla University, his collection will one day be passed to the Oxford University Natural History Museum. He goes out in the campo most days and the week before we visited he would regularly spot 22 different species of butterfly in one walk! Can you imagine doing that here – no chance these days, sadly.
So on one sunny morning off we all set on with my Spanish Country Kid and his Guru Gramps in search of bugs and mini beasts.
Sadly I don’t know the names for most of the bugs and mini-beasts we saw on our walk but Guru Gramps does!
We saw the following butterflies: Large White, Small White, Bath White**, Clouded Yellow*, Long-tailed Blue**, Lang’s Short-tailed Blue***, Painted Lady, Speckled Wood, Wall, North African Common Blue***, Mallow Skipper***, Spanish Grizzled Skipper***.
* frequent migrant to UK
** rare or very rare migrant to UK
*** not found in UK
We also saw the Crimson Speckled Footman**
Other insects seen – Red-veined Darter Dragonfly**, Paper Wasps, German Wasp, Hover-flies, other flies, black Spider-hunting Wasp with dark red abdomen and a few large millipedes.
On the main road we saw several caterpillars of a pyralid moth** (no English name).
We spent a couple of hours out in the campo, seeing a whole host of creatures, enjoying the sunshine, making the most of the vast knowledge of Guru Gramps with my Spanish Country Kid.
Love your pictures. What an amazing place your parents live in! So many different species too! 🙂
Thanks, they are so lucky and Spain is a beautifully diverse landscape
Wow Mary just wow! What a fabulous collection of photos. It looks awesome there, this bug hunt looks like it was loads of fun too! Spain is just wonderful isn’t it, I bet you can’t wait to get back in March 🙂
I’m in love with Spain I have to say. Beautiful country, so varied as you drive through it. Can’t wait until we can take Monkey on a road trip and have him appreciate it too.
Definitely a Spanish Country Kid! What a wonderful time you had and Monkey must have been in his element with the knowledgeable Gramps as his guide to all things creepy crawly. It sounds and looks idyllic where they live, thanks for linking up and sharing your fab photos and spanish adventure with Country Kids.
It was wonderful and so lovely to watch them together
Great photos and lovely to find and experience some Spanish bugs!
We’re so lucky to have Dad
Oh, fabulous photos Mary! What a great nature walk 🙂 Glad you had such a lovely time.
It was wonderful and so good to be out in the countryside
I know my Dad is the fountain of all knowledge bug related – it is wonderful.
those photos are amazing! great memory!
Thanks – yes, lovely to spend time like that.
How lovely – it’s great that ‘Gramps’ knows so many names too! 🙂
He is my fountain of all knowledge!
such a great opportunity for him to be able to explore the spanish countryside, especially with his gramps as an insect expert!!
It was lovely to enjoy it all together