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.

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.