Spain road trip week 3 - Picos de Europa and Cantabria

We're now back in the UK, safe n sound, not as sun kissed as we'd like but that's another road trip under the belt - its been good to check out some familiar locations later in the year and also to check out a few areas neither of us have been before in a birding capacity. Northern Spain and the Picos de Europa is the main focus of this post and I'm pleased to report we had the sun shining for most of it!


For those that are interested in such things we ended up with a grand tally of 216 bird species for the 3 week trip, not too shabby! There's a link at the end of this posting with a full list.



Picos de Europa foothills from Potes

Anyone who's flown to Spain will doubtless have gazed down upon the Picos De Europa and marvelled at those jagged snow topped spurs, I know I have many a time, and often promised myself an explore there. Some of the scenery in and around the 'Picos' is truly jaw dropping with many peaks well over 2,000m and equally impressive gorges and caves. This was just the view from the campsite we stayed at nr Potes (pic right)




The wildlife was non too shabby too with Redstart, Firecrest, Hobby, Northern Bullfinch, Dipper and Wryneck all around the campsite with the last 3 all new species for the trip. I thought I had my first live snake of the trip whilst I was bumbling along a forest trail but it turned out to be one these little fellahs ... a Slow Worm or if you like a Legless Lizard


Slow Worm, Potes, 15/05/16

Cable car, Picos de Europa

By my reckoning those last three new birds took us to 199 species with still 4 or 5  days to go ...get in! Still,  if you want to tick off birds like Wallcreeper, Rock Thrush, Alpine Accentor and Snow Finch you have to get up high and in amongst those snow topped peaks and the only way to do that in the Picos is to take the car!

Snow Finch, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Sadly no Wallcreeper .. it was always gonna be tough on the tourist trail, no Rufous Rock Trush either but we sailed past the 200 mark with another 4 new species for the list .. Water Pipit, Alpine Chough, Alpine Accentor and a 'lifer' for the both of us - Snow Finch. Surprisingly big for a finch, we had a pair immediately we were up there and then Mark was lucky enough to have c25 fly right past him. In flight, the pure white patches in their wings was nothing short of dazzling!

The Alpine Accentors were confiding, relatively numerous and a few were ringed as were some of the Alpine Choughs



Snow Finch, Fuente De, 16/05/16

 



 

Alpine Accentors, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Water Pipit, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Alpine Chough, Fuente De, 16/05/16



Northern Wheatear, Fuente De, 16/05/16

Northern Wheatears have been almost ever present wherever we've been so I shouldn't have been surprised to see a few up here, however incongruous they seemed surrounded by all that snow!

A nice male Black Redstart, one of several, topped off a cracking couple of hours birding above the tree line and up amongst the clouds and, as expected, the landscapes were simply breath taking!

Black Redstart, Fuente De, 16/05/16

 

Fuente De, 16/05/16

Fuente De, 16/05/16

Fuente De (view from), 16/05/16



Long Lipped Tongue Orchid, Cantabria, 17/05/16

From the Picos we headed back towards journey's end and Bilbao, but not before a couple of days chilling out on the Cantabrian coast near the fishing town of Santona. En route there we stopped at a lay by for some lunch and spotted these amazingly shaped orchids in with red clover.

They're 'Long Lipped' Tongue Orchids, fairly widespread around Iberia but a first for me. Weird looking aren't they?







Long Lipped Tongue Orchid, Cantabria, 17/05/16



Peregrine Falcon fledglings, Montehano, 18/05/16

We camped out across the bay from Santona at Montehano, an historical mound, where there's an old quarry and a monestary, La Convento de Montehano. The weather had turned sour again and the bay held precious few of the many wading birds we'd been expecting here but the distinctive shrill 'kee-ark' call of a Peregrine hinted at a nest site and something to look at. Took a wee while but finally we located 3 fledglings high up on a grassy ledge.

Very average 'record' pics in poor light and at distance, but you can clearly see that they're all well developed and I would say almost ready for the off. We watched the site for a couple of hours or so hoping for one of the adults to return with food but it never happened so we withdrew in case they were spooked.

Peregrine Falcon fledglings, Montehano, 18/05/16

A few small flocks of Whimbrel turned up the same day, incredibly our first of the trip, and we also had Ringed Plover, Curlew, Redshank in small numbers plus a Black Necked Grebe on one of the many water courses around the marismas here. I walked around the monastery snapping a few more wild flowers then climbed the Montehano hill and got some landscape pics of the area.

Mountain Kidney Vetch, Montehano, 18/05/16

Fairy Foxglove, Montehano, 18/05/16

Ivy Leafed Toadflax, Montehano, 18/05/16

Santona (from Montehano)

Escalante (from Montehano)



Marismas de Santona (from Montehano)

Convento de Montehano

With a ferry to catch the next day it certainly felt like journey's end but what a journey - from the North to the South of Spain and back again, a distance of appx 2,500 kilometres in 3 weeks and in total 214 bird species recorded. It was non stop, even the ferry back brought us 3 more birds - Guillemot, Turnstone (on the ferry itself!)and Arctic Skua and just off the ferry at Southsea I had a fabulous photographic finale with a summer plumaged adult Mediterranean Gull feeding on the beach with common Black Headed Gulls.

 

 

Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16



Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16

 

Mediterranean Gull (Left), Southsea, 20/05/16

Mediterranean Gull, Southsea, 20/05/16

What a beauty!

 

As promised then here's the final species list for the whole trip - just click on the link 

Spain 2016 species list 

 



Yorkshire floods, early singers and bloomers, uplifting landscapes and aerial manouvers over the LDV

Up until this last w/e, as far as I can recall, up here in the north, we've had precisely 5 decent weather days since early November - someone might be bothered to check that and hey my memory ain't great, but suffice to say its bin reet gloomy up ere!



Gloomy and wet! This flood alert map for the UK was a typical scenario for any given day in the 2nd half of December and just about says it all!




A few choice flood pics later but with a stack of images around re the chaos and havoc reeked in some of our northern towns and cities, including around my home city of York, there's not a lot more I want to add.






So here we are well in January and at last a few bright days and opportunities to get out and about.
The planets are aligned (worth checking out by the way) and so too the off duties of a couple of my good mates and a day tramping around the Lower Derwent Valley brought some pleasing results ...

We met at the old Church Bridge at Melbourne to be greeted by a singing Song Thrush giving it plenty. Its been so mild of late that many birds have been tricked into thinking that it's nearly spring. I've been hearing Great Tits singing for a while now and there's many reports of Daffodils in full bloom. Skip to my footnote for an even earlier bloomer!

Anyway, back to Winter and the LDV. First off were 3 White Fronted Geese in amongst Greylags at Thornton Ings. We never get many of these relatively scarce geese around here but a few turn up every year so always good to track down.


White Fronted Geese, Thornton Ings, 23/01/16

Several Pintails flying around (prob 30ish) in amongst several hundred Wigeon  but you've gotta like Pintails! So graceful and different looking.

Pintails (male and female), Thornton Ings, 23/01/16

Pintails (2 males and female), Thornton Ings, 23/01/16

and check this out ... not the best of pics and I wouldn't normally include this one, but here's the same small flock of Pintail plus attendant Lapwings apparently stopped in their tracks by an approaching Sparrowhawk that none of us spotted at the time.

Pintail spooked by a Sparrowhawk (top left), Thornton Ings, 23/01/16

I guess that's the value of taking lots and lots of pics of flocks of birds - you never know what you might later pick out! Here's another - mainly Lapwings but if you look closer, several other smaller waders in amongst. In this case we reckoned Dunlin and all told maybe 60 in total. You can never rule out the odd Ruff or even Knot in amongst such flocks but I've scoured this pic and pretty sure they're all Dunlin.

Dunlin in with Lapwings, Ellerton, 23/01/16

A few Golden Plover flocks around too, no pics but maybe 150 or so.



Peregrine Falcon (male), Ellerton, 23/01/16

Here's a very distant pic of the culprit in the above mass take off of waders around Ellerton church, a male Peregrine Falcon that had earlier had a go at a careless but on this occasion lucky Lapwing.



















At the same location there were many many Wigeon (1000+) but not as many as on previous occasions I've been down here, but with so much flood water, Peregrines around and Saturday morning boy shooters taking pot shots at tame Pheasants (come on guys, that's such poor sport!) everything gets so dispersed. These Whooper Swans for instance had been pushed right up to the edge of the churchyard by all the shooting (they're usually way over on the far bank).

Whooper Swans (2 adults & 3 juvs), Ellerton, 23/01/16

At North Duffield we had a single male Scaup in with about 100 Pochard and 20 or so Tufted Ducks - too distant for a pic but its my first Scaup of the Winter and good to get a nice male.

Yet another great day out around the LDV!

Ok, as promised a pic or 2 of the recent floods. My home city of York plus nearby Selby and Tadcaster were all drenched with much havoc, media coverage and ...well .. wetness.! All gone now and most Yorkshire folk I speak to just don't talk about it anymore.. "Aye, its 'appened a fore, n reet as rain it'll 'appen again!"

Floods in York, Dec 2015

Askham Bog flooded, 27/12/15

Askham Bog flooded, 27/12/15




Cawood (nr Selby), 28/12/15

..and to round  things off, a few pics from the odd occasions that the sun shone over the New Year period and I managed to get out. Here's a couple of great Redwing images - I've decided that they're far easier to photograph in flight than on the ground or perched when they're sooo skittish!

Redwing, Fangfoss, 24/12/15

Redwing, Fangfoss, 24/12/15

Cot Nabb and nearby Givendale in the Yorkshire Wolds is one of my favourite places to visit and walk around when I want to just get away from it all and clear out my head, you barely see a soul out there and on this particular morning earlier this month all my relatively minor issues in the grand world scale of things were put firmly into perspective!

Cot Nab, Yorkshire Wolds, 11/01/16

Cot Nab, Yorkshire Wolds, 11/01/16

Cot Nab, Yorkshire Wolds, 11/01/16



Red Kite, Givendale, Yorkshire Wolds, 11/01/16

I know they're becoming a little ubiquitous in some parts of Yorkshire (they're all over Harrogate / Leeds area), and I know some folk (well, just gamekeepers really) have little time for them, but there's a reason why they're one of the most photographed of British birds .....


Red Kite, Givendale, Yorkshire Wolds, 11/01/16

Just as uplifting, here's the Mausoleum at Castle Howard viewed from the back way into the estate







The Mausoleum, Castle Howard, 20/01/16

  

 



Footnote
I was out on YWT duty today at Askham Bog, really mild it was and on my way out at sunset I spotted a flowering Lesser Celandine. Yes its an early flowering plant but traditionally it appears late Feb/ early March - this January 24th!

Lesser Celandine, Askham Bog, 24/01/2016