HOTEL RINCON DE CIERZO TO EL PLANERON
– QUINTO (RIO EBRO) – LOS MONEGROS – HECHO VALLEY
Our
longest day yet! We were up at 5am and out on the road at 5:30 in the dark, how
nice! We arrived at El Planeron at 6am
just as it was getting light, the reason for this madness? DUPONT’S LARK! Guess
what, the lark stayed in bed or sat up and laughed at us. No Dupont’s but
plenty of other birdies. In fact the air was alive with lark-song, Calandra,
Short-toed, lesser Short-toed and Crested all giving it large!
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| The view from the hide at El Planeron |
We
drove deeper into the reserve and as the light improved we could see the true
brilliance of the landscape, the open steppe gave way to the most colourful
escarpment and its true beauty became apparent as the sun came up. Wow, that
was worth getting out of bed for, sod the lark!
Over
the next hour or so we sat in the hide adjacent to a lovely clear pool hoping
for some Sandgrouse activity, but alas, that never occurred either. We heard
the evocative call of the Stone Curlew and we saw several Southern grey Shrikes,
Red-legged Partridges, Hoopoe (calling), Common Kestrel and a few dozen Corn
Buntings.
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| El Planeron |
On
the way back to the hotel we stopped to watch a Great Reed Warbler, Woodchat
Shrike, a Blue Rock Thrush and a very strangely coloured Short-toed Eagle. The
bird was perched, it had a completely snowy white head, breast and its back and
wings were grey flecked with white, extraordinary.
After
breakfast we packed up the bus with our luggage and set off for the Pyrenees.
We made a last ditch effort to see Sandgrouse as we passed El Planeron, our
efforts were rewarded with a couple of views of fly-over Pin-tailed Sandgrouse,
but we also saw Little Owl, Red-billed Chough, Northern Wheatear, lots of
Black Kites, Griffon Vultures and Common Kestrels. One ‘kettle’ of Griffon
Vultures held 50+ birds!
At
Quinto the river Ebro winds it way down to the coast toward Barcelona, it is
quite big here but this year extra rain has made it flood its banks, it was
still very full and fierce today. However, a few meanders and side pools held
some slow flowing water and some birds. Our first stop produced 5 warblers in 5
minutes! Great Reed, Reed, Melodious, Cetti’s and Blackcap all sowed for us. We
also saw a couple of Purple Herons, Common Cuckoo, two Golden Orioles and
plenty of Common Nightingales were singing.
Our
second stop at a junction in the river was also rewarding, we watched a Sand
Martin Colony that had just about escaped the high water mark and a Kingfisher
had done just the same. Lots of White Storks appeared and even more Black
Kites. We saw our first Common Buzzard as we drove further westward into an
area cultivated for rice. In the rice paddies there were good numbers of
Black-winged Stilts, Northern Lapwings (9), Common Ringed Plover (3) and three
more Purple Herons with a Grey Heron and a couple of White Wagtails.
We
stopped to buy and eat lunch in Pina del Ebro, the plaza Espana was very nice
and we could watch many Common Swifts and several White Storks visiting their
nests whilst we ate. Before we made the final leg of the journey to the
mountains we headed for Los Monegros, this is a wonderful wilderness of
scrubland with small steep sided hills, some of the landed is protected and
still holds, the wretched Dupont’s Lark. It is also an excellent place to see
immature Golden Eagles, I suppose it is because there is a large population of
Rabbits. We had several target species to look for and our first stop produced
two of them. Spectacled Warblers are sometimes very hard to find but today we
were lucky and one bird was performing its display flight whilst singing its
head off, thank you very much! Whilst watching this lovely little beast we
found a very smart looking Black-eared Wheatear which also showed extremely
well, two targets in the bag.
At
the next stop I said , (just as we were getting out of the bus), “this is a
good place to look for Golden Eagles” and Neil said, “there’s one”. Yes it was, the first year eagle flew off a
nearby hillside just as we pulled up, it circled right over us and even came
back some 10 minutes later to do it again, fantastic. In the meantime we had
found Dartford Warbler which was number four of our target species. We searched
on for a Great Spotted Cuckoo but never found one, what we did find was quite
distressing, a dead Golden Eagle handing from pylon, we couldn’t tell how it
had died but whichever way it was it wasn’t natural as the bird was probably
only a second year.
It
was now 3pm so we had to set off for the mountains, as we approached the
outskirts of Zaragoza we saw two more Golden Eagles, how fantastic was that? We
then drove on the autovia passed Huesca and Jaca (we stopped on the east side
of Jaca for a coffee break) to complete our trip. Journey birds included
Carrion Crow, Red Kite, Black Kite, Marsh Harrier, Spotless Starlings but no
Egrets or Herons.
Along
the Hecho valley we added Grey Wagtail and Red-backed Shrike to the tour list,
both birds were seen from the bus as we sped by. We reached the village of
Hecho where we were staying for one night, don’t ask! Tomorrow we are staying
in the Hotel Uson for the remaining four nights of our stay in the Pyrenees.
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