Andalucia 10

Tags

Acebuche, Andalucia, Andalusia, azure-winged magpie, black-winged stilt, Blue rock thrush, Cattle egret, cinereous vulture, cormorant, Donana National Park, Eagle owl, Egyptian vulture, El Rocio, Eurasian black vulture, grey heron, greylag goose, griffon vulture, Iberian great grey shrike, Iberian magpie, Imperial eagle, Jandula, lapwing, littel egret, Naturetrek, Red-legged partridge, rock pipit, Sardinian warbler, Sierra Morena, spoonbill, starling, stonechat, White stork

Birds in Andalucia.  Look, I’m not very good with bird identification, but I do know that eagles tend to soar.  So when Simon said, incredibly excitedly, ‘There’s an imperial eagle on that post’, I quickly zoomed in on it and took this. I was not alone.  And not alone to realise, on examining the photo enlarged on the camera screen, that ‘that’ post’ was not that post!  What Simon meant was this – perhaps half a mile away.   When you go on a Naturetrek trip, they provide you in advance with a checklist of all the creatures you may see, with a column for each day.  There are always hundreds of species of birds on this list, and when we’re out I am in such awe as I hear naturalists/guides (and others) crying’, ‘That was the call of an X’, ‘There’s a Y.’  ‘Where, where?’ we all say, and they all do their darndest to help you see the creature.  I’m probably about average in being able to pick something out visually, no better, and am certainly poor on birdsong.  At the end of each day we gather together – nothing compulsory about it – and go through the list.  Of those seen or heard by someone, I will have seen perhaps a third to a half, the bigger the bird the more likely I am to have seen it.  I will have managed to take a photo of very few indeed. Here’s what I did get, with their identifications to the best of my recollection, (totally subject to correction, please).  Firstly in the Coto Doñana.

Original identification corrected to female or first-year male stonechat (Ack. BL)

Iberian great grey shrike

Stonechat

???

Cattle egrets living up to their name

And why not  take a bunch of starlings?  Especially when they are beautiful Spotless starlings, with wonderful glossy coats (though ordinary ones are pretty wonderful too!)

Griffon vultures

Griffon vultures

Best I could do to get a griffin vulture in flight

Easier to take this

We had driven a great loop and were now nearer to (but not very near) the Imperial eagle.  Only about 4500 left in the world

And then Simon spotted another, incredibly far away, and I’ve magnified this many times, but the nest can be seen in silhouette, and the eagle in a direct line with it, on the right.  Two Imperial eagles in view at the same time!

Almost as exciting to the leaders were a total of 6 Egyptian vultures coming in to two trees.

White storks and a heat haze

More cattle egrets doing their thing. To quote Wikipedia, ” It was originally native to parts of Southern Spain and Portugal, tropical and subtropical Africa and humid tropical and subtropical Asia. In the end of the 19th century it began expanding its range into southern Africa, first breeding in the Cape Province in 1908. Cattle egrets were first sighted in the Americas on the boundary of Guiana and Suriname in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic Ocean. It was not until the 1930s that the species is thought to have become established in that area.”

We were taken to a tiny patch of the wetlands that was still wet.  I would have expected that there would have been vast concentrations of waders there.  There were not.  In addition to these Little egrets (I think) and lapwing/black-winged stilts (which, or something else?) we saw spoonbill and other species further away.

Greylag geese, on the ‘lagoon’ at El Rocío

Then at our picnic spot at El Acebuche, I managed at last to see an Iberian (or azure-winged) magpie.  I had heard them mentioned a few times, but this was the first time I had properly seen the beautiful creature, rather smaller than the common ones (and there were plenty of those around).   A few new birds (in terms of photographic opportunities) in the Sierra Morena. We saw a fairly rare Cinereous (a.k.a. Eurasian black) vulture over our picnic stop by the Jandula dam, but sadly this is not one, but a griffon vulture. (Identification BL)

Rock pipits at the dam

There is a Blue rock thrush in this picture, also at the dam.  Half way up the slope there is a bit sticking out.  The bird is not that bit. The bird is the bit sitting on that bit!

Two red-legged partridges. Some colleagues went out for a short early evening birdwatching trip on the second evening in the mountains, and came back saying they had seen an Eagle owl.  We all went to the spot the next day, and this is where we were searching.  (Well, the rock face was much bigger than this actually.)  A third of the way down, and a quarter of the way in from the left there is this. And within that there is this.  The Eagle owl is in one of these holes. See it?  No I don’t either.  Yeah, right, we’ll believe you Simon!

 

Several birds joined us at our last picnic spot, including this grey heron, which flew gracefully towards us after a while.  And then a troop (is that the word?) of Iberian magpies arrived at the same spot, and gradually made their way towards us, taking over the picnic tables as we left them. (Actually, the collective word for magpies is a murder, or a charm, or a congregation or a gulp. Take your pick.)

If it’s one for sorrow and two for joy, what do 14 magpies signify? (BL suggests for two secrets never to be told!)

At the spot where we had seen the big fish, a kingfisher swooped along the river and under the bridge – no photo sadly – and these cormorants stood for a while and then took off. Next (and last) post: felines!

 

Andalucia 7

Tags

Andalucia, Andalusia, Donana National Park, Egyptian grasshopper, Egyptian locust, El Rocio, Hotel Toruno, Iberian lynx, Naturetrek, red deer, Romeria del Rocio, Wild West

Andalucia, El Rocio and Doñana National Park.  The Doñana wetlands are the largest in Europe – except that they were almost dry at this time of year, the effect exacerbated by the farmers who take much of the water for irrigation, especially of strawberries.  We were staying at the Toruño hotel.

Note the hitching posts

On the wall of the reception area showing the species we might expect to see

The hotel restaurant, over the way from the main building. What appear to be tall hitching posts are bar counters for horsemen!

This was in the small town of El Rocío (‘the dew’), quite the most extraordinary town I have ever visited.  It was like driving into the Wild West. When you think of it, the Wild West may well have been modelled on such places in the first place – except that in this case much of the town has only been built from the 1950s onwards,.  We were told that it is known as the International Town of the Horse, though my researches since have not been able to find out much about that.  But what El Rocio is known for is a pilgrimage, the Romeria del Rocío, at Pentecost each year, which attracts up to a million people. These can arrive on horseback, in horse-drawn carriages and in wagons.  For there is no tarmac in El Rocío itself. The ‘roads’ are laid entirely with sand.  (Another blogger has written much more fully – and elegantly – about the town here.)

The remaining posts about my trip to Andalucia will be by theme, rather than day by day accounts.

The remains of this one will introduce El Rocío and the National Park, the next the entirely different Sierra Moreno where we spent the second part of our wildlife tour, then the remaining three posts will relate the wildlife we found  –  and some domestic animals.  But back to El Rocío. Internationally known for it or not, it is certainly a town for horses, and there is much evidence of the pride of place given to them. Here are two ordinary ‘roads’ and the sign at the restaurant where we ate lunch at one day.

Yes, cars are allowed

When we got back from a morning drive on the Tuesday, instead of sheltering from the blistering heat, I went out to explore El Rocío for a short while. 

I thought I was perhaps the only person about (‘the English(wo)man out in the midday sun’) but these three horsemen greeted me cheerily.

Huge pilgrimage needs huge church

The sign says that in 2001 the Andalucían authorities had declared this species of olive, endemic to the region, a ‘Natural Monument’. (If only all regional declarations in Spain were so benign.)

There were two young cats entertaining us with their antics at each of our two outdoor dinners there, siblings probably, and here is one of them just before we left at midday on the Wednesday. Horses. I had looked round from my meal on the Tuesday evening and seen one of the high bar counters being used! And I took these two photos from the van as we returned from our second morning drive. 

The head of the woman exercising the horse at the end of rope in the ring is just visible

El Rocío is right on the edge of the Doñana National Park.  These four photos were taken a short walk from the hotel.  For most of the year, there is a lagoon hugging the whole of one side of the town. However, we could just see a very distant shimmer of water, all that remains until the rains come. (Nearly two weeks on, I don’t think they have done so yet. And yet my guidebook says that October has one of the highest rainfalls of the year in Andalucia.  Climate change?)

Horses are everywhere around the town, and in the National Park, grazing where they can, sadly some of them in an emaciated condition.

Most of the birds were too far away to be well identified.

Two-inch long Egyptian grasshopper, also known as the Egyptian locust, but no threat to crops and vegetation.  Here at a wildlife visitor centre.

Lizard with attitude, same place

These remaining pictures were taken out as we explored early in the morning or as the day drew to an end, deeper in the national Park, looking especially for Iberian lynx.

The long shadows are of humans. The flat brown bit would be under water earlier in the season.

And these red deer stags were a distant vision on the ‘lagoon’ just before we left El Rocío.