The Electric Bird

 With a beautiful colouration of brown and electric blue, the European roller is considered one of the most beautiful birds in Europe. It isn't a very common bird in some places, and indeed in the region in which I stay you need to know where to look in order to see it. In almost all of these places, it is never common. And unless a specific area is missed out, it is likely it won't be seen at all. 

The favoured area to see this bird in our region would be, strangely enough, the ruins of a long-abandoned church surrounded by open country, but they also occur in historically larger numbers in the palm plantation running along the northeastern boundary of the El Hondo Nature Reserve, though in the plantations they are much more elusive. 

My first experience with these birds was in 2021, when I saw them in the beginning of July. In the intense heat of the morning, I managed to observe 5 birds in the region, including one which decided to perch next to a hoopoe. 

In 2022, when most summer migrants started returning to their haunts, I encountered a single bird in a place where I was never aware of them being in before: it was perched on some wires running parallel to a busy road. In the summer, I saw it here again, in exactly the same spot, and it could potentially be nesting in this immediate area. 

The church ruins area is a spectacular place to see the birds. The open country, the presence of at least 2 pairs in the vicinity, and the almost-docile and quite approachable nature of the local rollers mean observations are usually quite easy to obtain. On my first trip to the area, I made a surprising discovery which led to me concluding that there were at least 7 rollers of all ages in the area- a number so large for the region that eBird had issues with accepting it. And, although an April visit led to a swarm of bee-eaters being encountered as well as a pair of great spotted cuckoos, all I managed to see was a very distant bee-eater this time around, although I kept hearing them, though a young woodchat shrike did put up an appearance.

The closest pair was very busy. They were flying back and forth, hunting for insects and other food in a nearby area. 

Although I have seen videos taken in June with suggestions the rollers nested in the church itself, my observations do not support this view. I was hearing constant squeaking from unfledged birds, but they did not come from the ruins. Instead, they came from a nearby palm, in which the rollers had built a nest inside a natural tree cavity. I observed the pair constantly collect food from a nearby field and bring it to the loud nest. The sounds coming from the nest as well as the behaviour of the parents leads me to believe there were 2 chicks in that nest, and at one point I managed to get a photo of one of the parents approaching it

The second pair is more distant. These birds, as almost all others do, nest in a palm plantation, and in the morning after I just arrived I had seen them chasing each other. 

I also encountered a bird which I thought was a juvenile because of its colour, but it may as well have been a third adult present in the vicinity of that pair. 

The thing about these birds is that they are so beautiful and photogenic you just want to come back and see them more- in fact, in the entirety of Europe, I can only say that the European bee-eater is more beautiful than this stunning blue bird. So I decided to come back a short while later, hoping for even better photos this time around. A bee-eater was calling near the ruins, but just like last time, I was unable to find it. I found a roller perched by the field it was probing last time, and managed to get exceptional photos of it at close range. The road being nearby is probably the reason why they aren't jumpy like the golden orioles are.

I observed this pair for a bit longer, including the aforementioned pair constantly flying to their palm tree nest, as well as the more distant pair. At one point, I managed to get a photo of a roller as it approached and then landed on a perch. 

But it was chased off it by another roller, and as it flew past I tried to get a photo in flight, the only thing which I failed to do last time I was here. My lens being complete manual focus and at full magnification, I had to rely on just my eye to take an unblurred photo: last time I tried, they were all blurry. But not this time.

After I took that, I decided not to stalk these birds any longer, and instead moved on to El Hondo, to see if I could find the palm plantation rollers. I visited the biggest palm plantation I could find there- a massive pine forest extending out from both sides of the road- and began searching. Although I heard a roller call from the depths at one point, I didn't see it- these birds seemed much more wary, until one bird landed in front of me, on a palm. However, as I prepared to photo it, it erupted from its perch and flew off, but I managed to get a photo of it in flight nonetheless. 

I never took roller photos from that angle before. Later on, as I was leaving, I saw a roller pair circling above this forest- in the past, it would support the presence of up to 5 pairs, but this was the first sighting from here in a long time, it seemed