Nerja is a municipality on the Costa del Sol in the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. It belongs to the comarca of La Axarquía. It is on the country’s southern Mediterranean coast, about 50 km east of Málaga. Sheltered by the impressive Sierra Almijara mountain range, this once sleepy fishing village is now one of the most popular tourist resorts along the coast, with a population of over 22,000. The town has resisted too much re-development and high rise apartment blocks, preferring to stay a charming seaside town, attracting the more discerning holidaymaker; the town is often referred to as the ‘’Jewel of the Costa del Sol’.

There are quite a few colonies of wild parakeets along the Costa del Sol, Spain, very often nesting in the palm trees near the beaches. You can’t fail to notice their presence as they make rather a racket. Here are a selection of photos taken of wild parakeets on the Balcón de Europa, a viewpoint at the centre of Nerja.

A rapakeet’s nest can be seen on the left hand palm tree at the base of the palm leaves just above the stem.

For photographers the first three photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot SX700 compact camera with 30x optical zoom (amazing what can be done with a hand held compact camera). The remaining photos were taken with an Olympus E-M5 MkII with 40-150mm Pro lens and 1.4 Converter, again hand held.

The nest!

One of the family building the nest.

Series of photos showing a parakeet delivering nesting material.

Nesting building!