King of the Pool House Roof

Unlike the UK where sparrows are sadly an increasingly rare sighting, here we live side-by-side with Spanish sparrows. In truth, I think we live in their territory not they in ours. The pool house roof [below] definitely belongs to them.They are relentlessly cheerful birds which, if you are not careful, you can bestow with human emotions:-Curiosity – when they look at you with their head tipped to one side;
Hunger – hopping towards you, hopping from one foot to another, watching you eat, waiting for tibits;
Anger – face-to-face shouting battles, Spanish style mano a mano [a bullfighting term which literally means one bullfighter against the other] on the roof of our little pool house;
Protection of home – patrolling roof of said pool house where nests are hidden in the tiles;
Domination – keeping watch at the pinnacle of the pool house roof, chattering loudly at challengers;
Sexual flirtation and predation – males hopping towards a female who lands on the roof, stalking her from tile to tile, and finally jumping on top when she is looking the other way. Thanks to Marcel Gil Velasco for this great pic. Read his blog at http://birdingbytrain.wordpress.com/
5 to remember
raro/a – rare
el territorio – territory
implacablemente – relentlessly
jovial – cheerful
la curiosidad – curiosity