Butterflies and hidden gardens in the Serrania de Ronda

From time to time you get distracted by other things and wander off on a tangent like I've done for the last week, and since a blog is meant to be a personal journey I haven't been too worried about updating it. Although when I logged in this morning I found a couple of comments and a few emails wondering where I am and what I'm doing. So, for those people, I'm OK.

The countryside in Southern Spain has become quite green recently, the rains back in early February really helped and over the last few days we've had some more, so as you can see it isn't all desert like at the moment. In fact we're really starting to love the look of the countryside here, the rocks are starting to become friends, and the more you see them or walk over them the more you realize how attractive they are.

Many of the peaks around these parts are limestone which is what gives them that really sharp angular look. Being limestone the rock is a light grey, almost silver in the harsh afternoon sun. Places where there have been rock falls are the most interesting though, that exposes a lovely orange colored rock that turns a wonderful shade of shimmering orange at sunset.

These rocky fall areas are also where you get to see some of the most beautiful little mountain gardens. What happens is that a bunch of rocks fall and splinter into many smaller rocks and of course the small amount of top soil somehow manages to find its way to the top within these crevices.

Birds love these sheltered areas and make their nests here, and of course they bring in a lot of wild flower seeds. Within a couple of years the rock fall crevices are filled with wild flowers. Its only a matter of time until olive trees and other bushes start to grow with the result you get these wonderful little gardens, some of which are on the shady side of the mountains developing, and framed by the exposed rock around them. It is truly beautiful and well worth seeing.

The picture you see here is from one of the local walks we've done recently, its a Scarce Southern Swallowtail on a Knapweed flower, once again I seem to have found a small friend with chunks missing from his wings, although I haven't seen too many of this butterfly around these parts so I should be grateful for having captured this shot. Actually he sat on the Knapweed sunning himself for about thirty seconds which was really nice of him.

That same day we walked up the Montejaque to Cortes de la Frontera road which is where this photo was taken. The butterflies love the little yellow flowers of a really nasty thorny bush along this stretch of the Serrania and a few of these bushes are close enough to the road that you can take photos without having to stumble over bits of broken rock. Not that this is a problem you know, but it does make it easier to set yourself up to take photos of butterflies.

Our walk started out being a fine day, in fact there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but by the time we got back to Montejaque (about 4 hours later) we were feeling the first spots of rain on our skin. Apparently low flying clouds can't get over the Serrania so they build up here and then rain on us, and this can happen very quickly as we discovered.

Luckily we didn't get wet, but it did ruin our plans for a coffee and tapas in one of the local tavernas since they only have outdoor seating.