Martin and Louise are staying with us for a couple of nights and we went out for a birding/deer searching day into the mountains of the Guadiaro Valley.
View of the countryside around Montejaque
The morning was dull and overcast and Gaucin was shrouded in a morning mist, it was quite cool too! As we drove north from the village on the Ronda road we could see beautiful white cloud sitting in the valleys on either side of the road, it was a fabulous sight.
We headed straight for Montejaque so that we could look for the Spanish Ibex which was high on our wanted list. A couple of stops near Benaojan produced some distant views of Ibex and a flock of 50+ Bee-eaters in road-side bushes.
The gorge at Montejaque
At Montejaque we turned onto a track just north of the village and spent a couple of lovely hours in warm sunshine watching agreat variety of birds and we had better views of Spainsh Ibex.
The Ibex family.
The hillside above Montejaque is good for Black Wheater and Spanish ibex
A group of Griffon Vultures were seated on the rocks down in the valley below us and made frequent sorties into a grassy area where there must have been a dead animal, but it was just out of sight.
On the mountainside above us we found: Black Wheatear (singing), Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Bunting, Cirl Bunting, Black Redstart and in the shrubs and trees we found Golden Oriole, Blackcap, Sardinian Warbler, Garden Warbler, Serin, Goldfinch and Greenfinch.
As the air temperature rose so did the vultures and a number of other species flew over which included: Raven, Sparrowhawk (which put up a large flock of Spotless Starlings), Bee-eaters, Short-toed Eagle and a Common Kestrel.
We also found Stonechat, Rock Dove, Woodchat Shrike, Corn Bunting and Willow Warbler. Our next stop was just a few hundred meters up the road at the limestone gorge above Montejaque where we found more Ibex, Crag Martin, Alpine Swift, Linnet and Red-rumped Swallow.
Black Wheater
The cork oak woodland a little further up the valley provided our next venue and it produced some good sightings. Red Deer being the main target and we found one almost straight away. But we also found a Honey Buzzard as it flew from its perch near a lake, on which we found Common Coot and Little grebe. Several Bee-eaters were swooping over the lake catching dragonflies! The wood also provided Nuthatch, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Grey Heron and soaring above us with a small flock of Griffon Vultures we saw Black Kite (12), Black stork (2) and another Short-toed Eagle.
We ate our lunch at the edge of the wood in the shade of the trees whilst we watched Red-rumped Swallows and then two Egyptian Vultures (adults) circled above us on the thermals, good birds and my first for the autumn.
After a quick coffee in the Venta Vaga we paid a second visit to the limestone gorge at Montejaque where we found anothe three Spainsh Ibex, unfortunatley, none of our sightings were of males.
Lastly we spent a lovely hour at the river Guadiaro at Estacion Cortes watching a good variety of species. Bee-eaters entertained us for about an hour as they spent a lot of time diving into the water for a wash! But we also watched Little-ringed Plover, Grey Wagtail, White Wagtail, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff sp, Bonelli's Warbler, Kingfisher, Serin, Cirl Bunting and a single Hoopoe.
We left at 4:30pm, after a lovely day, we had over 60 species in the bag and lots of pictures to sort through!
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