Walking along the bed of the river Llobregat we found this lovely nest. We could not see  its tenant, a penduline tit (Remiz pendulinus) or pájaro moscón in Spanish. This bird builds an elaborate hanging nest, used in Central Europe as children’s slippers in the past. To build its nests uses thin branches, spider webs, animal or vegetal fibers, spider webs, seeds, etc.

Doing a tour in Montjuïc few days ago, we were trying to find some lace bugs under the bark of a London plane, but instead of insects we came across a couple of these very small and secretive arachnids.

Pseudoscorpions look similar to scorpions due to their large pincer-like appendages known as pedipalps  but they are only few millimetres long and they their long tail is not armed with a sting.

Fearsome they may appear, but Pseudoscorpions are harmless to us humans, although they are important predators of insects, mites or other creepy-crawlies. Maybe that’s why the lace bugs proved elusive…

I still haven’t found the species name but I guess the one at the left could be female protecting her young under a silken home she has spun.

More here

Wandering around the more overgrown corners of Montjuïc and other “wild” fringes of Barcelona, like the sunny slopes of Collserola, you may well come across Kermes oak, Quercus coccifera, an evergreen low growing oak found across the Mediterranean.

During the Roman Empire, Hispania had to pay a tribute to Rome in the form of an insect also called kermes insects (Coccus ilicis) that live on the Kermes oak. The unfortunate insect was squeezed in the thousands to produce a crimson dye – the most highly prized dye for the robes of senate members. The dye was not replaced until the arrival of cochineal, an scale insect that lives on cacti of genus Opuntia , after America was “discovered”. Although it is not easy to see one of the actual kermes insects on the oak, it is easy to spot the little red galls formed by a tiny wasp called Plagiotrochus quercusilicis. A plant gall is an abnormal growth of a part of the plant usually triggered by chemical signals produced by immature insects or other organisms. In a way they are like plant “tumors”.

A spectacular artichoke in flower yesterday in the old Botanical Gardens on Montjüic.

Another example of how Gaudí found inspiration in nature. The iron railing of Casa Vicens in Gràcia, Barcelona based on the Mediterranean dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis), Europe’s only native palm.

We very much enjoyed taking part in the release of two young ravens in Ciutadella park by the wildlife group Galanthus last August. These juvenile ravens, of unknown precedence, had been captured in the streets of Barcelona and taken to a wildlife recovery centre. A few weeks ago they were still flying over the zoo, where they have taken up residence. On the left with the raven-proof gloves Eduard Durany. On the right, Albert with the smile. More here

Video recorded from our living room in Poble Sec.

Last year, 2014, the pair of blackbirds raised a quite remarkable 4 broods of chicks. It was normally the male in charge of feeding them on our balcony, and sometimes he even came with the four chicks at the same time – we never had the camera handy though.

We know now that you should remove the plastic net from the food balls, which they devour by the way.

A bit of an experiment. First effort at sound recording and nature commentary. Listening back a little paused in the comments. As Lucy Brzoska pointed out to me, there’s a Sardinian warbler there too.

A parakeet nest abandoned for the winter in a Plane tree on a Barcelona street. Some of these nests are huge, tottering perilously over the streets weighing more than a tonne, though this one is much smaller.