ANOTHER TYPE OF MOUNTAIN WALK

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.

SUBZERO IN MAY

SUBZERO IN MAY

We spent last weekend in Gredos, the high mountain range (2600 m) behind our house. On the first day (Saturday) we walked up from the car park at La Plataforma (1800) to the mountain pass called Puerto de Candeleda (c. 2000 m). The weather was bad at the start of the walk, with wind and driving rain, but then bucked up and we were able to see and hear Bluethroats on the way up to the pass (better was to come the next day). A calling flock of Choughs flew over our head.

 Lots of Wheatears, Alpine Pipits and some lovely Yellow Wagtails, like this one perched atop the broom.

  

Lots of mountain goats, as usual, and a few Cinereous Vultures among the Griffons.

  

One the Sunday we left the hotel at 5.30 in the morning with the temperature at -2 degrees and a strong ground frost on the way up the mountain!!!!! The first Bluethroats were all puffed up against the cold.

 Maybe because of the low temperatures we saw few Rock Thrushes, but when the day warmed up a bit we saw this lovely pair at the top of the climb near Circo de Gredos, quite a long way off, together with two Alpine Accentors that stayed outside camera range. Here are two photos of the male and female Rock Thrush.

  

Skylarks were up in the air singing nearly all the time but this bird came down to the broom scrub to sing from atop a bush.

 The ubiquitous Dunnocks are also worth a snapshot.

  

On the way down, with the temperatures now much higher, we found that the Bluethroats had sleeked down a lot.

 We're used to seeing Bluethroats singing and displaying with their tails cocked upright but this bird did a strange little strutting dance with his head pointed skywards too. Really curious to watch.

The Bluethroats of Gredos either have a white spot on their blue breasts or none at all, but this bird seemed to have a reddish spot like the northern European race