A Clearing in the Mallorcan Woods.

I know I am not really a wildlife expert, but I really enjoyed the location of our holiday villa this year. No wonderful panorama like we look for normally. But a secret, inward looking place in the woods.

Our holiday villa sat (we are back now) at the foot of the mountains outside Pollença. It feels secluded, surrounded by trees and separated from its neighbours by woodland. But the villa has not simply been placed within a natural landscape. Sometime before 2003 a space has been carved out for it.

Our Holiday Villa, north west of Pollença.

Trees have been cleared. The ground has been levelled and enclosed. There is a house, a terrace and, most conspicuously, a bright blue swimming pool. Roads and tracks now wind through what must once have been a much more continuous area of woodland.

Our Holiday Villa, tucked right into the base of the Serra de Tramuntana hills / Mountains.

We are part of a human invasion of the hillside.

That sounds rather dramatic when you are sitting beside the pool with a cold drink. Yet the wildlife around the villa continually reminds us that this holiday landscape has been created from something older and wilder.

The first signs of human occupation often arrive through sound.

In the morning, cockerels call from somewhere beyond the trees. One begins, then another answers from a different clearing. At other times, a dog barks from a hidden villa or farmstead. Another responds farther away, and for a few moments the noise passes through the woodland.

Our Holiday Villa, looking north west up the limestone crags.

We cannot see most of the houses, chickens or dogs, but we can hear them. Their calls seem to map the scattered human settlement of the hillside. Each voice marks another clearing: a villa, a garden, a smallholding or an older farmstead carved from the woods.

Our own villa is simply the clearing in which we happen to be staying.

Yet the wild landscape has not gone away.

Lizards dart across the walls and disappear into cracks between the stones. Bats appear in the evening. A hoopoe, with its extraordinary crest and striped wings, visited the ground close to the villa. Wood pigeons and collared doves move among the trees. High above us, large vultures circle on broad wings, using the rising air around the mountains.

A visiting Hoopoe. PS I know my photography is rubbish.

At ground level, the vegetation can be surprisingly hostile. One climbing plant, which I first encountered while working with students in Tuscany, is armed with savage thorns. It does not merely occupy the woodland edge; it appears determined to defend it.

All too keen to rip clothes or legs if you push your way through the undergrowth!

The most intriguing visitors have been the dragonflies. First came a brilliant orange-red one, and then another that was strikingly blue. Both seemed interested in the swimming pool.

The pool must look wonderfully inviting to a dragonfly searching for water in the dry Mallorcan summer. Unfortunately, its clear blue water is an illusion. Chlorine makes it an unsuitable place for dragonfly larvae to survive.

Family Fun at the Pool.

Their presence nevertheless tells us something. Somewhere nearby there must be more dependable water. The landscape appears thoroughly desiccated, but perhaps springs, small pools or shaded watercourses survive around the foot of the hills. We have already noticed a deep, dry channel close to the villa. For at least part of the year, water must still move through this landscape.

The dragonflies are therefore clues. Like archaeological finds, they point towards something we cannot yet see. The first one we saw was probably a Broad Scarlet Darter.

A Broad Scarlet Darter. I simply couldn’t catch it on my camera. It didn’t stop like this! Image from Wikioedia.

The villa has undoubtedly displaced part of the woodland, but it has also created a new kind of habitat. The pool attracts insects. Stone walls provide warm places for lizards. Gardens, disturbed soil and open ground offer feeding opportunities for birds. Artificial lights probably draw insects and, in turn, the bats that hunt them.

What initially appears to be a simple division between the human villa and the wild woods is actually a much more complicated boundary.

The cockerels call between human clearings. Dogs announce movements we cannot see. Dragonflies investigate artificial water. Lizards occupy the walls we have built. Hoopoes search the disturbed ground. Above them all, the vultures continue to circle over a landscape much larger than our temporary holiday home.

My so saw a pair of Black Vultures soaring above the Villa. I tried to get a shot, but they were just dots to the camera.

Then, on our final evening, the woods produced one last surprise.

Somewhere beyond the trees, drums began to beat. We could not see the players or tell how far away they were. In the still evening air, the sound travelled through the woods with the steady rhythm of a marching band—oddly reminiscent, to British ears, of Protestant marchers in Northern Ireland.

Perhaps it was a rehearsal for a village festival, or a celebration taking place at one of the hidden houses or farmsteads. We never discovered its source.

It seemed an appropriate way to end the holiday. All week, the landscape had revealed its inhabitants mainly through fleeting glimpses and distant sounds: cockerels calling between clearings, dogs answering across the hillside, dragonflies appearing beside the pool, bats overhead and vultures circling above the mountains.

Now, on our last evening, unseen drummers marked another human presence concealed among the trees.

We had spent a week in one small clearing, without ever fully knowing what surrounded us.