What a fantastic day! We awoke to a superb morning, clear blue sky, no wind and such a wonderful back drop to the village. After our breakfast we made the short journey to Garbadito which is a journey of some 10km from the village of Hecho. As we climbed through the dense forest and pine woods we saw: Bullfinch, Song Thrush, Blackbird and a couple of Red Kites perched on prominent dead branches.
From the upper car park at Refugio Garbadito we saw our first Citril Finches, they sat in a dead tree and soon flew a little closer. We also saw some very brightly coloured Linnets and a few Chaffinches, but the best sighting was of a few Crossbills feeding in the pines. O the well our walk through the forest towards the well known Wallcreeper nest site produced very little until we saw some large birds drifting across a cliff face on the other side of the valley. These birds turned out to be Lammergeiers, what a great then waited find. The birds circled for a while and then one of them landed on a ledge and we could see through our telescopes that there was a young bird on a nest!
 |
| Gentian |
Not long after we arrived at the wallcreeper site, we saw one of the birds approach a hole in the rock, then a second bird came out of the hole, they both flew off round the rock face. We then waited some 15 minutes before further activity and what activity it was. The male bird returned to the nest hole, he was carrying a bunch of flowers in his beak, no word of a lie, the female came out of the hole and he gave her the flowers, unbelievable, I have never seen such behaviour of any species.
Later the male came down from the nest and started scouring for food on the rock face just some 30 meters from us, it gave stunning views which we all enjoyed tremendously. I have to say that I have never had such great views of Wallcreeper in all my life.
Other birds seen on and around the cliff face:Alpine Swift, Red-billed and Alpine Choughs, Crag Martin, Griffon Vulture and as we walked through the woods we saw: Crested Tit, Coal Tit and we heard Robin, Wren and a Green Woodpecker.
We ate our lunch back at the Refugio where we had better views of Citril Finch and more views of Griffon vultures. We then drove back down the river and drove to the upper section of the Hecho Valley. We then spent the rest of the afternoon scouring the valley, river and the mountain sides for new species. We got great views of Garden Warbler, Red-backed Shrike, Yellowhammer, Linnet, Grey Wagtail, Dipper and Egyptian Vulture. We also saw Alpine Marmot, Pyrenean Chamois and lots of new butterflies. A couple of nice orchid were also on show: Early Purple and Provence Orchid were very common and lots of Gentians displayed brilliant blue in the grass hillside. But the best spectacle of the day was the appearance of some 300 Choughs, they circled on the skyline and landed in the high mountains to feed on the grassy slope. Occasionally they take to the air, what a magnificent sighting.
 |
| Provence Orchid above and Early Purple below |
It was now 5pm so we left the mountains and drove back to hotel. We met up at 7pm and had a lovely fish dinner before retiring for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment