MONFRAGUE NATIONAL PARK
It was another excellent
day of bright sunshine, but it was quite windy to start with. Temperatures ranged
from 10C – 32C but even at 32C it felt much cooler because of the northerly wind. We set off from
the finca at 7:30am and drove through Trujillo to the national park of
Monfrague, a couple of stops along the way produced Hoopoe, Common Redstart (a lovely male)
and Azure-winged Magpies.
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| the Rio Almonte at dawn |
Our first
destination was the Castillo de Monfrague which was getting the full force of
the wind. Recent renovation and improvement work has increased the enjoyment of the visit, superb viewing platforms are now in place and a lovely sheltered approach walk gives you much better birding opportunities. As always, the views from the castle were stunning, we could see for miles in all
directions, in fabulous clear daylight. The sky was littered with vultures, 50 -80 Griffons were up
there and just as many were seen perched on the Salto de Gitano (a pinnacle of
limestone with hundreds of ledges and caves). The odd Black Vulture would
venture into view and a single Egyptian Vulture circled above us as we were
watching a pair of Peregrine Falcons. A few passerines flitted about the castle
walls, we saw Blue Rock Thrushes, Black Redstart, Blue Tit, Great Tit and lots
of Chaffinches.
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| Spanish Bluebells |
Back down on the
main road through the park we drove to the base of Salto de Gitano which was
much more sheltered and it felt quite warm. Now we were looking up to the
pinnacle as we watched the vultures in their hundreds. We found several Black
Storks, two of which were nest building. We had superb views of a Wren singing
as it perched on a rock and as we drove deeper into the park we saw lots of
hirundines and good numbers of Alpine Swifts. Other stops, taken just before
lunch, produced Black-eared Wheatear, Woodlark, Subalpine and Sardinian
Warblers and several parties of Bee-eaters. We ate lunch at picnic tables overlooking
another rocky pinnacle with several pairs of Griffon Vultures in residence and
an equal number of Black Kites were milling around often delivering their
horse-like whining call. A couple of Hawfinches dropped into the tress quite
near to our picnic tables and whilst we searched for them we discovered Greenfinch,
Serin and Siskin.
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| one of the birds nesting in the garden of Finca Santa Marta |
The afternoon was
spent doing much of the same, stopping at interesting miradors found throughout
the park, in particular we spent some extra time at the Puerto de Tierta. It
was there that we found a superb Spanish Imperial Eagle, what a great sighting
and it was also excellent to see such a large number of Spanish birders
watching it too, perhaps there is hope for Spanish conservation after all? The
couple of hours of the afternoon were spent walking through the Cork Oak woods
on the northwest side of the park. Despite the high temperature there were
still many birds singing and dashing about. We found Common Cuckoo (both the
male and the female called), Woodchat Shrike, Short-toed Treecreeper, Eurasian
nuthatch, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Long-tailed Tit, Rock Sparrow and many
common species.
At 4pm we decided
to call it day and set off back to Finca Santa Marta which took us an hour. We
hadn’t seen that many species but we got quality birds today rather than
quantity.
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