SURPRISE PACKAGES IN GREDOS

The site.

Last Sunday, on a recommendation made by our friend Santi Villa, we tried out another site in Gredos. And what a site it turned out to be!! All the normal high-mountain stuff was still very active, singing away and giving amazing views from atop rocks, Broom scrub and telegraph wires. Especially obliging were the wonderful Bluethroats, which I was able to photograph right from the roadside

We also saw Alpine Pipits, a Tawny Pipit, Whitethroats (a very high density), Spectacled Warbler, Yellow Wagtail, Ortolan Buntings, etc. Here’s a snapshot of a Whitethroat.



This Wheatear, otherwise quite shy as a species, came close enough for me to get a semi decent snap.

Skylarks never stopped trilling high in the sky.

We saw a total of 8 Rock Thrushes, also quite shy and never coming very close. Two males once sat side by side quite amicably on the cables and then one of them attacked a nearby female, as you can see in the photo.

The big surprise came as soon as we arrived at dawn, when we heard first the tick-tock song of a Snipe and then saw him drumming overhead, the first we’ve ever seen breeding in Spain. I believe these to be the most southerly breeding snipes in the whole of Europe. Truth is it seem really weird to be hearing drumming snipes, so many of which we’d heard a couple of years ago in the Shetlands, in the same site with such Mediterranean species as Rock Thrush, etc. We even managed to get this shot of it flying overhead.

Another surprise came when we found a male Red-Backed Shrike at a height of 1909 m but it didn’t give us a chance to photograph it.

We also found these orchids, which we think are Robust March Orchids, Dactylorhiza etala subsp. sesquipedalis. If any blog visitor could confirm this identification we’d be grateful.

Already dead chuffed with the morning’s birding, we were on the way down the mountain when this wonderful Ocellated Lizard slithered into view to give us the last snap of the day.



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