We discovered a footpath from the house to the Country Club de Mazarrón. This ‘club’ is an urbanizacion of immigrants. Mainly from the UK. Although there also seem to live some German and Dutch immigrants.
Crossing a hill we had to pass between two large huertas (orchards) with very old vines rich with grapes. The vines are covered with nets that from a distance look like ‘greenhouses’. How they look from close by is to be seen in the picture above.
Halfway the first orchard we heard a screaming noise. As if a bird was fighting off its enemies. Although we couldn’t discover where exactly the noise came from, we imagined it was made to keep other birds away from the grapes. Indeed, the nets were not enough to keep the birds out.
In fact, neither was the noise because some home sparrows flew between the vines. Back home we found out that the noise was the screaming sound of hawks. Returning from the Country Club we saw that there indeed are hawks in this area. One of them had very efficiently munched away a hoopoe, leaving only some feathers and an empty carcass. At least that hoopoe will not steal grapes anymore.
^tvo
I still suspect that the sound of the hawks was a tape. It started on regular intervals and was always on the same level!