An early morning walk to watch the cork cutting produced very few birds, though a Booted Eagle alighting from a nearby tree was a nice sight. Apart from that there were a handful of European Bee-eater and the occasional Sardinian Warbler calling from the scrub.
In close proximity to the village there are at least two pairs of Booted Eagle as yesterday there was a mixed light/dark morph pair displaying low over Bar Pajuelo and this morning a light morph pair just east of El Hacho.
Some photos of the cork cutting, or
descorcho....it's still a heavily manual process with mules used to transport the cut sections of cork up the steeply-wooded slopes. The harvest is still weighed using the ancient
quintal measure which equates to 46kg.
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| Cork is still removed using a sharp axe |
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| One of the largest cork oaks, alcornocales, in the area |
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| Loading the mules |
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| Bringing the cork up to be weighed |
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| Traditional weighing apparatus |
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