BOTANY AND AGRICULTURE

Within living memory the Urra Estate consisted of many hundreds of hectares producing mainly grapes and grain. The vines are all gone and most of the land lay fallow for decades.

Our old almond and olive trees are still productive when tended (we harvest enough to be able to sell the produce to our guests). With the incentive of EU grants many new orchards are being planted in the region.

Not far away there are still commercial vineyards. Our neighbouring, smallholders and farmers grow mainly olives (for oil or for bottling) almonds or tomatoes.

The intensive agriculture of Almería is centred on El Ejido, "Plastic City", on the far side of the province, but nearby Campohermoso, though smaller, provides and equally good (or perhaps bad) example of what can be done in this way. Sorbas Gypsum Karst has been described as a "botanists' paradise".

BIRDS

The salt flats of Cabo de Gata are less than an hour's drive away and famous for their flocks of flamingos and other water birds. A list of regular sightings there runs to 150 species.

We are less than 25 Kilometres from the edge of the protected area of the Natural Park and share most of their inland species, while adding a few of our own. Common sightings, literally from our doorstep, include hoopoes, rollers, bee-eaters, great spotted cockoo, three kinds of wheatear and two shrikes.

We are keeping records and so far have sixty "definites" and a good few more "probables". We are enthusiastic amateurs at bird watching as at so much else and are delighted to welcome guests who can spare some time to instruct us. Lists of sightings at Cabo de Gata and locally are available here.

INSECTS

We would be more ashamed of our ignorance in the field of Entomology were we not fairly sure of being in good company. There seems to be no work which is genuinely a key to Spanish insects, though obviously general works on those of Europe are helpful.

As far as we know there are no comparable works to the Flora of Andalusia and Almería. It seems to us that an area which is known to harbour plants commonly thought of as African and, indeed, plants totally unique to Eastern Almería must hold fascination if not a surprise or two, for entomologists.

Spraying for pests where there is intensive agriculture is as common in Spain as in the rest of Europe, but the Sorbas area has few greenhouses and little intensive cultivation of anything except olives. Aerial spraying or the wide spread use of insecticides is still very uncommon and it is a popular area for beekeepers, who bring their hives from far away to benefit from the early spring flowering of the thyme.

Urra has not been sprayed for many many years and the wealth of butterflies is a joy to specialist and non-specialist alike. Moths (including the giant silk moth), beetles (including cicadas), locusts, grasshoppers and dragonflies abound. A short search will usually reveal a praying mantis. There are scorpions, wasps, ants and flies, of course, but mesh over the windows keeps the houses pretty insect-free and non-entomologists can always use an insect repellent. We have had few complaints on this score.

REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS

It seems surprising, living in a semi-desert, to hear the chorus of frogs and toads in Spring, but they breed in the pools of the river only a short distance away. Where there is permanently running water there are colonies of terrapin which can be seen sunning themselves on the rocks and plopping into the river when disturbed.

The land tortoise Testudo graeca has one of its last strongholds a few kilometres away and we hope it will soon find its way to the sanctuary of Urra. We have seen many lizards, including Lacerta lepida, said to be the largest European Lizard and known to reach 80 cm. We have positively identified specimens of up to 60 cm. Geckoes, perhaps disconcerting to the unprepared when discovered on the wall above one's bed, are sure to catch any insect which has found its way indoors.

There are snakes, but they are seldom seen except by those looking for them. No one we know has ever been bitten by one. Identification of live specimens has usually been uncertain, except for the Horseshoe Whip Snake and the strange Blanus cirrereus, entirely subterranean and looking at first sight very like an earthworm. We have various preserved road victims for the close inspection of anyone who is interested.