Now we’ve been a week in our summer house in Arriondas (Asturias) – hence the hiatus en blog entries because of the moving ruckus – and the truth is that it’s been great so far. We’ve seen stacks of Red Backed Shrikes on every outing, each pair in exactly the same site as last summer, Bullfinches with fledglings, Redstarts breeding in the villages (Sinariega and Arriondas itself) instead of having to hike uphill across country for 3 hours like in La Vera, 3 Yellowhammers singing and – the best of all – 2 Pine Martens – one seen from the car driving down from the mountain pass called Puerto del Pontón, and the second on Sunday morning on our bikes on the road from Collía to Ribadesella, lolloping towards us along the side of the road until it saw us at the last moment, froze for a few seconds and then shot off into the undergrowth. Fantastic views! Song Thrush, Garden Warbler and Iberian Chiffchall are all still singing pretty well.
As for daytrips, on Saturday last we did the walk up from Lago Ercina to Vega de Ario. Truth is that Gredos has spoilt us a little, with all the high voltage activity. Maybe it’s because of the time of year but, even though we started at dawn, it was a pretty birdless trudge for the most part.
Throughout the whole walk there were a few family parties of Wheatear and we were able to snap males, females and young.
We were surprised to hear Tree Pipit and Bonelli’s Warbler in the small beech hangers in the first part of the climb.
We were keen to see Alpine Chough but all the first one’s we saw were redbills, probably the loveliest of the two but not a tick for me!
In the end, after doing the whole walk there and back, the carpark was full of Alpine Choughs.
In Lake Ercina a Coot was sitting on her Vesuvian nest.
We didn’t strike lucky with Wallcreeper, Snowfinch and Alpine Accentor. Maybe next time.
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