Andalucia 11

Tags

Andalucia, Andalusia, domestic cat, Donana National Park, Iberian lynx, lynx, myxomatosis, Naturetrek, Sierra Morena

Andalucia: Felines, at last!  It has been suggested to me, from Canada, that if I wanted to see lynx I should have travelled to that country, where they are abundant.  Ah – but our quest was for Iberian lynx!  There are estimated to be only about 400 of these left in the wild, though recent conservation efforts have meant that this figure is fourfold what it was 15 years ago. It remains the world’s most endangered feline species. The two places we tried to see them, the Doñana National Park, and the Sierra Morena, are the best places to do so; there are more in the latter, but they are much more widely scattered there.  Naturetrek did not guarantee a sighting – how could they? – but 80% of these trips had had positive outcomes.

The Iberian lynx, considerably smaller than the Eurasian version, is about the size of a boxer dog, and has wonderful ear tufts and a short stubby tail. Its main prey is rabbit, and there is great concern for its future because the rabbit population has considerably declined in recent years, the result of myxomatosis and other disease.

We saw no lynx during our first, morning, drive – but a pug mark, thought to be made the night before.

Notice the claw marks

And on the roads there were warning signs. As we set off for our second, late afternoon, drive, we were told that a lynx had been spotted that morning eating large prey.  We (Sergio and the driver) found the prey:

Probably a small deer

The lynx would not be likely to be far away from such a larder, and could well be sleeping its meal off.  And eventually he – a magnificent nine-year-old male named Dardo (dart) –  was spotted resting in the shade.  

He has a collar

After a while, it was decided that we should move on to the one remaining patch of water in the vicinity, (see previous blog) and hope to see Dardo again on our return.

Lynx staple diet

He had scarcely moved, 90 minutes later. 

Not fazed at all by humans in a van staring at him, perhaps 50-80 metres away

Night was closing in.  Huge sighs of relief from all leaders, and huge smiles of pleasure from wildlife tourists.

 

We returned quite early the next morning hoping to catch the lynx eating.  He had finished though by the time we arrived, and was hanging around near where we had seen him the previous day.  This is the best shot I could get, partly because it took me a while to spot him, despite others’ efforts to help, and partly because I was on the wrong side of the van to get into a good position.  But I was able actually to see him walking around for a few minutes, in and out of and behind the bushes.  We decided to move on once he had finally disappeared, but just then a rangers’ van came up, someone leapt out, and went over to where the prey had been, and came back holding something.  We were most privileged to be shown the pictures his camera trap had taken the previous afternoon, before we had arrived there.  Serendipity or what!

No, we didn’t see any lynx in the Sierra Morena, just this old piece of lynx poo.  But there were compensations for cat lovers back at the hotel!  Cats (domestic) and more cats and more cats! Mostly happy to accept caresses, with just one or two rather more nervous – perhaps having had bad experiences from previous guests, and some very friendly indeed. It was impossible to know how many there were, especially since they were nearly all black and white.  There were two mothers, one of which was a sort-of Siamese, and it seemed to me that the rest were mainly 6-month-old kitlets with a couple of 3-month-olds.

I do know there were at least 13 cats (and I suspect more), because when we came back to the hotel on our last day, I had a load of chicken ham on me, left over from lunch.  As a result, when I got it out of my back pack, there were kittens into said back pack, after the smell, and then around my feet – 12 of them. One mother cat was absent from this feast, so that meant there were at least 13 cats in total at the hotel.  I didn’t manage to get a photo of the blissful experience of having 12 cats round my ankles, as I didn’t want to get my camera greasy, but here is a selection of the photos I got at other times. (Felinophobes, jump to the last picture.)

This is the one I would have kept in my back pack and brought back to the UK!

Or perhaps this one, though it was a little shy

I counted 6 in this hidey hole at one point, but it is not easy to get a good picture of six blackish cats in the shade!

One of the two mothers

I believe this granite piece was once used to crush olives

Apart from treats from guests, the staff made sure the cats were well fed and watered. This final picture shows a completely different and very admirable creature profiting from their bounty, at the start of a long journey, presumably back to a nest.  I really, really enjoyed my eight days in Andalucia, and it has really given me a great desire to go back – to see more of its rich cultural heritage, and also, perhaps at a different time to year, once more to explore Doñana National Park.

 

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 9

Tags

Andalucia, Andalusia, bats, bullfighting, burrowing beetle, Donana National Park, Donana Nature, fallow deer, mouflon, Naturetrek, red deer, rock ibex, Sierra Morena, Spanish ibex, wild boar

Andalucia: non-feline mammals and a few other natural things.  In Doñana National Park to start with. This was the first creature of interest we saw, a long way off and in poor light – a wild boar.  Later in the week, in the Sierra Morena, we had a good but distant and fleeting view of a large family of boar, great and small.

In both places there were many deer, but horses – in abundance – only in our first location. Everywhere we went there were dragonflies, but they very rarely settled for more than a second or two. This was the only half-decent photo I managed in five days of trying.  What follows only happened to us once, but it is a frequent occurrence apparently in the National Park.  All out and push! No, we didn’t actually have to push.  Our driver and our excellent Doñana Nature guide, Sergio, pawed away the sand in front of the wheels, and all was well after a few minutes.  The unexpected stop gave me time to look around, and take this photo. I had seen these before, but now I had the chance to ask what they were, each sandy strand about a centimetre wide. The answer was a burrowing beetle cast.

Did we see lynx? The final post in this series will answer that question!  Moving on to the Sierra Morena, there was a greater variety of mammals to be seen, but still dominated by deer.  We had two excellent sightings of courting mouflon. They are not rare animals, but we were lucky to have two such sightings just minutes apart from each other on our drive.   This was sad.  We saw many magnificent bulls like this at one point – on farmland, being bred for bull-fighting. Horrible.  I had deliberately not been to see Seville’s bullring.

Magnificent red deer stag, the other side of a wire fence

Simon’s eagle eyes spotted this exciting creature for us shortly after lunch. We stood on the dam, the rock ibex (also known as Spanish ibex) being at a very great distance from it.

My camera at maximum (x24) zoom

The same photo cropped and enlarged

It wasn’t around for long, and not everyone even managed to see it before it jumped down. But it was far to far away to have been disturbed by us.

Then we walked through a totally dark tunnel at the other side of the dam, and saw…

… bats roosting. Here are about eight, huddling together, lit by Simon’s head torch.

A single bat. Whether these were Daubenton’s (myotis daubentonii) or Large mouse-eared (myotis myotis) bats, I cannot say, but we saw both.  There were several more holes sheltering bats in the tunnel.

Continuing on the afternoon’s drive, we saw more deer…

… including fallow deer. This male has magnificent palmated antlers.

We drove back to the second of the chilly morning’s stopping points, and stood on a bridge there.  This is not a Monet painting, and I don’t know what the fish was – but it was big!  At the spot where we had awaited the sunrise, we took advantage of the shade of trees to keep out of the now very hot sun.  These deer used other means of keeping cool!

Maximum zoom again – it had required binoculars to see what the black smudges were

Cropped and enlarged

Left alone, this one appeared to be throwing around and then eating weed!

 

Andalucia 8

Tags

Acebuche, Andalucia, Andalusia, Andujar, Charente, Doñana, Durer, granite, Great piece of turf, Guadalquivir, Jandula, Naturetrek, Sierra Morena

From El Rocio to Andújar and beyond, Wednesday to Friday. Taking a rest after our last morning drive at El Rocío, we set off at midday for the three-hour drive, broadly following but sadly not aware of the Guadalquivír river, to our second hotel, the Hotel los Piños, 14 kilometres above Andújar, in the eastern  Sierra Morena.  But first we went backwards a little into the National Park, to have a picnic lunch at a lovely visitor centre, El Acebuche (the ‘wild olive tree’ already noted in El Rocío).  The temperature was rising (from about 25°C in Seville to about 30°C at the end of the week), but as long as one was in the shade, the dry heat was very welcome.  The visitor centre was informative:

National, Natural, Parks etc in Andalucia. Doñana is the orange patch to the west, on the Atlantic, and the Sierra Morena the central and smallest green patch at the north.  The very tip at the south, on the Straits of Gibraltar, is Tarifa, near where our migration-geek Naturetrek guides, Simon and Niki live. Gibraltar itself is the little southward-pointing spur just to the east.

El Rocío is where the dark and light green parts meet up with the yellow, and Acebuche is nearly at the coast to the south south-west of the town.

“Travelling without frontiers”

An unusual sundial.  It works both sides, depending on where the sun is.

The scenery changed as we drove: Our all-day outing the following day showed the dry landscape of the Sierra scattered with boulders (Pictures also snatched from moving vehicle).

Taken from a picnic spot as we had lunch, overlooking the…

reservoir of the Jándula, a tributary of the Guadalquivír

Arty-farty picture taken that day. (Ever since becoming aware of Dürer’s wonderful painting, ‘Great piece of turf (1503)’ I have been very sensible of the beauty of clumps of grass, etc.)

Sitting around looking for wildlife, no 23

Returning to barracks in the late afternoon, a view of distant mountains, not nearly as pretty, sadly, as when we had seen it in the cool mists of the morning

Another a-f picture. I loved the sun coming through the seed-heads.

The following morning, Friday, we got up very early indeed, before breakfast, in quest of our ‘prey’.  It was SOOOO COLD!  But beautiful.  We were very glad to get back to a good breakfast.

Clockwise round the table: Simon (guide-naturalist), Trish, David, Hugh, Stephen, Niki (guide-naturalist, and here waitress), Judy, Penny, Sharon, Margaret (hidden), Jason, and Henry.

Again we took a picnic lunch (Simon and Niki, our Naturetrek guides, did us proud each time!) and our stopping place made me nostalgic for my previous life in France. Where we ate so reminded me of lazy picnics on the banks of the Charente river – though perhaps there were no mountains in the French setting.

Sitting around looking for wildlife, no 34.

Interested in geology, I had been fascinated in these two days to see many extraordinary granite formations as we drove along, but I was able to get a photo of none of them.  This, right by our picnic spot, is a poor representative.  We ended the day where we had watched the dawn arrive hours earlier.  The final three posts will be about the wildlife we saw during those five days in the National and Natural Parks…