A Couple of Blanks

With no diary events to keep us at home and a clear-ish day, we tried being adventurous and decided to go exploring. Our first chosen target was Oliva, on the coast  a little north of us. The name of Oliva is familiar to us from our previous visits to the Pego-Oliva marsh. We drive through Pego to get to the marsh but we’d not continued to investigate Oliva, which supposedly has an interesting historic section. We drove past the marsh, the reeds of which were being rattled about in yet another stiff breeze. As we went by, I told my newly emerged dragonfly buddies to hold on to avoid being blown away. Once on the main road, we also drove past several working girls who looked as though they needed no help holding on. 😉 Interesting how some roads attract such trade – truck drivers route, perhaps?

Once in town, we spotted the old section of Oliva up to the left. What we didn’t spot were any likely-looking parking spots. I’m not yet familiar enough to risk anything without being certain that I’m not going to attract the attention of the local police. We ended up heading for the beach area where we did find a place to abandon ship. A short wander proved the beach area at Oliva to be tedious and essentially closed, surprising since we’re still in Easter week though, given the less than pleasant wind, maybe not.

Looking for a way to save the day, we noticed we were only 7kms from Gandia and its marsh, where I have previously seen some interesting Odos. Since the Pego-Oliva marsh had already produced our first spots of the season, it had to be worth checking out the Gandia marsh. If only we’d brought the right map along. Darn. Maybe I could remember where it was. We went for it.

No, I couldn’t remember where it was. We ended up in a commercial park in some part of Gandia with no clue as to which direction to head in. Eventually, desperation drove me to ask for directions at the customer service desk of a large Leroy-Merlin DIY store. Bingo, the lovely lady on the understood the Marjal de Gandia and, in stilted English that was nonetheless better than my Spanish, sent me off on the correct road. We found it.

We needn’t have bothered. Most of the narrow water courses were dry. The two lakes did contain water and we did find a handful of Blue-tailed Damselflies, either Common or Iberian or hybrids or a mixture, but that was it – very disappointing.

There was a wildlife highlight to the end of a double blank day, though. A wasp, which I believe to be a Paper Wasp, has been/is constructing an intricate nest on our lower balcony. Francine had told me a while ago and, in all the setting up of Casa, I kept forgetting. Now I was keen to go and look. I don’t think the wasp likes the weather any better than we do ‘cos it was hiding underneath its construction. As I peered at it, it moved around to the opposite side, away from my gaze. I had to return later armed with Francine’s macro lens to get a picture of the culprit. Neat, eh?