Lola the wagtail, a Galicia bar's most loyal customer
Lola the wagtail, a Galicia bar's most loyal customer
A BAR in A Coruña (Galicia) has a regular customer who has been coming in daily for a plate of tortilla – or Spanish omelette – for the last four years, and plants herself on the counter to ensure she is the first to get served.
According to Javier, who runs Bar Pontejos, he started off serving her 'bread and leftovers', but she refused to touch them and will only eat tortilla.
And she has the same name as his mother and sister, Lola, explains Javier.
“She comes regularly from about 09.00 every morning to around 14.30 to check we've got tortilla,” Javier says.
Lola has never paid a bill since late 2013, when she started making her daily pilgrimage to the bar.
But luckily for Lola, Bar Pontejos does not charge birds for food – or, at least, not grey wagtails like her.
She first flew into the bar and hovered, waiting for scraps, but after a few weeks, started perching on the counter and waiting for her tapas – and is now such a regular customer that all the others let her get to the bar to 'place her order' first.
“They'll shout for me in the kitchen, saying, 'Javi, Lola's waiting to be served',” says the owner.
Javier recently discovered Lola was, in fact, a boy, and considered renaming him 'Lolo', but decided to keep his original title, meaning he continues to be 'surrounded by Lolas', as he explains.
The photograph shows a grey wagtail, or motacilla cinerea, which looks just like Lola – the feathered member of the Bar Pontejos family.
