TWENTY KILOMETRES IN TWO AND A HALF HOURS

The photos posted in today's blog entry were taken only 20 K from our house here in Villanueva de la Vera. The trouble is that to get there we have to drive right round the massif of Gredos mountain range (1.5 hours) and then walk up the high-mountain broom scrub where they breed. Two and a half hours to get to a site that is only 20 K from our house as the crow flies! The bird in question is the beautiful Bluethroat, for me one of the handsomest high mountain birds, together with the Rock Thrush. On the morning last week when I took this photo the Bluethroats were very restless, still squabbling to settle their territories and hardly staying still a few seconds. I'm going up there again this weekend to see if I can get better photos of the Bluethroat, Rock Thrush, Wheatears, Yellow Wagtails, Alpine Pipits, Skylarks and all the other high-mountain birds that breed so close and yet so "far" from our house.