The Latin word hortŭlus , which refers to a “small garden” , derived from the late Latin hortulānus , which became hortolano and later, gardener . As an adjective , gardener refers to something linked to a garden .
Orchards, meanwhile, are lands used for growing fruits and vegetables . That is why the individual dedicated to the care and development of gardens is called a gardener.
The most common use of the term, however, is related to a colloquial expression about the “dog in the manger,” which does not eat but does not let others eat either . This is because the dog of a person who is in charge of taking care of a garden does not feed on the vegetables that its master grows, and in turn does not allow other animals to eat the crops.
In 1618 , the Spanish Lope de Vega presented a comedy titled “The Dog in the Manger.” There she tells the story of a woman who cannot love a man and for that same reason does not allow this subject to love or be loved.
Suppose that, in a certain Legislature , a political party refuses to provide a quorum to hold sessions. This attitude means that not even their own legislators can present projects. Faced with this reality, journalists affirm that the political party in question is like the dog in the manger , since it does not legislate and does not enable others to legislate.
Hortelano, on the other hand, is a greenish-gray bird that is common in Spanish territory. This animal measures about twelve centimeters from tail to beak. Its appearance is more slender than that of other birds of the same family. Its beak is long, it has striped brown plumage on both the wings and the mantle and tail. The color of its throat and head is grayish blue, while its belly is orange.
The scientific name of this bird is Emberiza hortulana and it is known in our language as the hortelano bunting , precisely because it belongs to a homonymous clade. A clade is understood as one of the many branches that biology recognizes within each phylogenetic tree; One of its most common synonyms is " family ."
The order of which the garden bunting is a part is known as passerines . In this large group we find more than fifty percent of all bird species on the planet. In fact, the common name used to refer to them is "birds", in addition to "songbirds" and "songbirds".
The distribution of the garden bunting takes place in much of the European continent, Africa and the western region of Asia. It is threatened in ten countries in Europe; There, its estimated population is between ten million and thirty-two million individuals. It should be noted that it has no described subspecies, which makes it monotypic .
The gardener is the only bunting in the Iberian Peninsula that completely leaves the territory during the winter to go in search of small orchards, forests or hedges where it can feed and adequately protect itself from the cold.
One of its most striking characteristics and appreciated by bird lovers is its song , which can be described as a succession of short sounds of apparent simplicity. Throughout its song you can hear at least two different sounds, one metallic and the other rather dry, which intersperse with an approximate frequency of two seconds. The first sequence usually consists of two syllables that are repeated with certain variations to end in a longer and slower one, which stretches the last vowel sounds of each chain.