Extremadura & Gredos 19th May 2018. Moving Hotels & Gredos Mountains.

Gredos Mountains from my hotel room.

19th May 2018

It's all change! It was time to move locations. Leaving Hotel Peru and the beautiful Extremadura, I was parked up at Arrocampo by 08:30, hoping for some decent bird action. My eventual destination was the Parador de Gredos, on the South-east side of the Gredos Mountains. I had a string of stops planned along the way.

Arrocampo (hide 1) produced no less than 8 Little Bitterns plus Night Heron, 2 Western Swamphens, Savi's Warbler, Hoopoe, Lesser Kestrel, Cinereous Vulture, Red Avadavat and Western Orphean Warbler.

Purple Heron and Western Swamphen in the early morning mist.

Little Bitterns

Hoopoe on a mission

Mission accomplished

Western Swamphen (forever a Purple Gallinule!)

From Arrocampo I went to the E5, out of Extremadura and into Castile-La Mancha then turned North at Oropesa, going towards Las Ventas de San Julian. I had heard that this was an excellent area for Black-winged Kite. The story was true as I had a single bird perched, distantly, in a dead tree. Amazing bird. Lots of hirundines and a calling Scops Owl were also there.

I had a walk along the track but only a few Lepidoptera caught my eye.

Back at the car I was having a breather when a large rodent appeared. It moved quickly away from me along the opposite track. I was about to turn around when a fair sized, young, Montpellier Snake appeared. It was moving faster than I run (no laughing please) and chasing the rodent. A Crested Lark landed a few feet from it and the snake stopped and poised for a strike. It decided that it was not worth the effort and slid away, hungry. A Viperine Snake was also seen nearby.

This is all that is left of the last person not to use insect repellant in Spain!

Drasteria cailino. A new moth for me.

Young Montpellier Snake

Montpellier Snake track

I carried on up the road and made another stop at Embalse de Rosarito. A nice place but not many birds. A pair of Grey Wagtails below the dam and a 2nd CY Yellow-legged Gull were the best birds there. The Gull is not at all common in this area according to Ebird.

I continued higher into the mountains and into Castile Y Leon. I stopped for a while at the top of the Wacky road that leads up to Puerto de Pico. Starting in the village of Santa Cruz del Valle, the ascent is just short of 16km and climbs 856m (2808 ft.) to the top at 1390 m (4560ft. ASL). You have to feel for the Romans who built a road up here. The view would have been jaw-dropping if it was not raining. Ravens, Peregrine, Coal Tit and Northern Wheatear were seen here.

I decided to go straight to the hotel from Puerto del Pico seeing Dartford Warbler along the way. I soon arrived at the Parador de Gredos and checked in. A great hotel with loads of character but creaky floors!

I dumped my bags and headed out to explore the grounds though not before noticing a Serin sitting on a nest just below my window. Black Redstarts were nesting nearby as were a pair of Short-toed Treecreepers nesting in the apex of a roof of one of the outbuildings. My first Red Squirrel was chewing on a pine cone near the car park. Crested Tit, Nuthatch, Jay and Greenfinch were nearby.