This video is called Birds in Spain.
After 4 November, it was 5 November 2014, in Aragon, Spain.
Our last day. Back to Barcelona to catch the plane.
This video is about little bustards in Spain.
We might have seen them between Aragon and Barcelona, where there is a 60% chance of seeing this species. Unfortunately, 5 November was a 40% day for little bustards.
We did see a corn bunting on a tree.
This video is about Manuel’s vulture restaurant in Santa Cilia, Spain.
After 3 November, 4 November 2014 in Aragon in Spain.
We went to the Sierra de Guara, the mountains south of the highest Pyrenees summits. It is a beautiful area; flowers like edelweiss grow there.
All photos on this blog post are cellphone photos.
We went to see a vulture restaurant on a mountain above Santa Cilia village which has been going for decades.
On our way to Santa Cilia, we passed a hunting estate. We could see red deer, fallow deer and mouflons.
In Santa Cilia there are beautiful old houses.
The vulture restaurant above the village has been organized for thirty years by Manuel; from the Amigos del buitre, friends of the vultures, organisation. A young woman, responsible for the organisation’s museum in Santa Cilia, helps him today.
The organisation has started a restaurant for vultures in Gambia as well.
As the sun begins to shine, griffon vultures spread their wings to dry them. It had been raining all night, making their wings wet.
A small trailer brings 100kg of slaughterhouse offal to the mountain. About 20 kg of this is meat for the griffon vultures; much is bones. Today, there are about eighty vultures. So, on average, each vulture gets about 225g meat. So, the vulture restaurants help the vultures; but they still have to find more food elsewhere.
This video is about the vulture restaurant on 4 November 2014.
Manuel tells that the griffon vultures, coming closest to him, eating out of his hand, are birds which he used to care for when they were ill.
While the griffon vultures are feeding, one bearded vulture, later two, circles above them. They don’t like to join the griffon vulture crowds. If they wait till the griffon vultures have stripped the meat from the bones, they can pick up the bones. Then, they will drop the bones from the air on rocks, breaking them. This way, they can get their favourite food: bone marrow. It takes young bearded vultures a long time to learn how to drop the bones in the right way.
Two ravens, and two golden eagles flying. Sometimes, these species join the griffon vultures for feeding. Today, they don’t seem to be hungry.
Griffon vultures mate for life, Manuel says. If one bird’s partner dies, then that vulture will not breed for some years. They also usually await their turn during feeding. Sometimes they quarrel. Maybe in wildlife films, quarrels among vultures while feeding are over-emphasized, as they look more spectacular in the film.
From the vulture restaurant, a beautiful view of the surroundings.
Later that day, we go to a reservoir. Two little grebes swimming.
A female siskin along the road.
A bit further, we have the privilege to see a wallcreeper again. It cleans its feathers.
In a park, we hear a great spotted woodpecker. Goldfinches in a tree.
Adults of Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) observed in the Theniet El Had National Park (northern Algeria) in springs of 2012 and 2014: here.
This little owl was photographed in Spain, on a hillock in a plain, south of the Pyrenees.
After 2 November, 3 November 2014 in Aragon.
To Monegros plain.
A green sandpiper on a lakelet bank.
Foggy weather. There has been drought for a long time. As we walk, many millipedes on the dry soil.
Also, many young natterjack toads. Still very small, less than one centimeter.
Many larks flying and singing. Most of them are calandra larks. Also some, smaller, lesser short-toed larks.
We had hoped to see sandgrouse here, but we don’t see them.
We do see the little owl, pictured at the top of this blog post.
A meadow pipit drinking at one of few puddles.
Then, sandgrouse at last: three black-bellied sandgrouse.
This video is about black-bellied sandgrouse on Fuerteventura island. We could not see these three ones in mainland Spain as well as on that video, as they flew overhead fast.
A crested lark on a field.
A bit further, eight red-legged partridges.
A male merlin on a wall. A hoopoe on a rock.
Six black-bellied sandgrouse on a field.
A flock of choughs.
A bit further back along the same road, a Thekla lark. Sometimes, it sings.
We go back to the lakelet. A snipe.
Though it is already November, still butterflies. Like this one.
We climb a hillock. At first, we see hardly any birds. A bit later, we can see scores of pin-tailed sandgrouse.
After a long time of exerting our eyes and binoculars near a village, we finally manage to see a well-camouflaged stone curlew on a field near a village. The scores of cattle egrets on a building there are easier to spot.
Finally, a hide near a lake. A little grebe.
A teal.
A water pipit.
Two marsh harriers, flying to the reedbeds for sleeping.
Still 2 November 2014. After the Alpine accentor, still in Riglos village in Aragon, Spain.
The house sparrows were still there.
We left Riglos. At 15:55, a southern grey shrike in a tree.
At 16:43, we were near a reservoir. The water level was much lower than we expected.
Scores of great cormorants flying.
At 5pm, about a hundred cranes flying overhead. We could hear the trumpet-like sounds of the adults; and the higher pitched voices of this year’s chicks, flying along on their first migration ever.
The reedbeds along the reservoir also attracted another migratory bird species: marsh harriers, preparing to spend the night there as the evening approached.
This video shows Alpine accentors in the snow.
After the morning of 2 November 2014, the afternoon. No snow yet, quite the contrary: rather high temperatures for November. Still, we would like to see whether birds like Alpine accentors had already arrived from their high summer homes to their lower summer abodes.
Near Riglos village, in the Sierra de Guara, mountains south of the highest Pyrenees.
Fortunately, an Alpine accentor was present, close to the footpath under the steep cliff faces.
It was looking upwards …
.. and downwards, to see if there was any food.
The bird looked up again …
… and down again.
Sometimes, the Alpine accentor was close to the sparse vegetation.
Sometimes, it was on rock, seemingly bare except for small bits of lichen. Nevertheless, it did manage to get food.
A clouded yellow butterfly flying.
After 1 November came 2 November 2014 in Aragon, Spain. We went to the surroundings of Montearagón castle, not far from Huesca town.
In 1094, Christian king Sancho Ramirez of Aragon had Montearagón castle built, to help with his plans to conquer Islamic Huesca. Later, it became a monastery. Now, it is a ruin.
A kestrel on a pole.
On a rock, a Thekla lark. This species was named by German zoologist Alfred Edmund Brehm in 1857 for his sister Thekla Brehm, who had died recently, only 24 years old.
A stonechat.
Rock sparrows on a wire.
A little owl, resting on a rock.
On another rock, a black wheatear cleanses its feathers.
Crag martins flying around.
A raven flying.
Closer to the ground, a Dartford warbler in a bush.
A zitting cisticola on another bush.
A beautiful red-legged partridge.
Near the castle ruin, a griffon vulture flies.
We continue to another part of the Sierra de Guara mountains, around Riglos village.
Near Riglos there are many steep rock faces, attracting much mountaineering tourism. Some of the people who used to climb here have died on the still more difficult north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland.
House sparrows live in Riglos. We want to see if there are also less common birds around here.
This is a photo of the mountains around the Portelet pass, near the Spanish-French border.
Still 1 November 2014 in Aragon, after the earlier wallcreeper and other birds.
We are going higher and higher in the Pyrenees mountains.
A pied wagtail on a roof in Escarrilla village.
We get at our highest point, almost 2000 meter, near the French border.
A few small trees just surviving in favourable spots. All other vegetation is much smaller. Like this lichen.
Near the Portelet pass, yellow-billed choughs, common chougs, and two ravens flying together. The choughs tried to drive a raven away.
On a rock, a northern wheatear.
On another rock, near a lakelet, a yellowhammer.
Two Pyrenees chamois walking on a mountain meadow. We now know it is a different species than the Alpine chamois.
We go back, following the Rio Gallego river downwards.
As we went back, two sparrowhawks circling. Lots of mallards in a lake.
Red kites flying.
On the river banks, two dippers. Every now and then, they dive.
This video is the trailer of a film about wallcreepers.
Underneath here is a photo of a wallcreeper. A really special bird. One of the main reasons why we went to the Pyrenees mountains in Spain.
We might have seen a wallcreeper at the canyons near Alquézar on 31 October. However, we did not.
Next day, 1 November 2014, we left the foothills of the Pyrenees for the higher parts of these mountains.
10:00: a griffon vulture on a pylon.
Thirteen minutes later, we are at about 1200 meter above sea level. A small bridge across a stream.
The first special bird which we see is a dipper among the rocks in the water.
Soon afterwards, a maybe even more spectacular bird: a wallcreeper on the canyon face!
In summer, male wallcreepers have black throats, females have grey throats. Now, in November, they both have whitish throats.
This bird sings (hear recordings here). As both genders sing, we can’t know whether this bird is male or female.
They usually nest above 2000 meter, and are at lower altitudes now because of the approaching winter.
We walk on. A long-tailed tit in a coniferous tree.
Griffon vultures circle around a mountain top.
A crested tit in another coniferous tree.
A bit further, a treecreeper doing acrobatics on the underside of a branch.
Then, a coal tit.
As we go back, we leave the forest.
A golden eagle flying high.
Alpine choughs flying lower, near a rock face.
Though it is November, still blue chicory flowers.
On a white lucerne flower, a small butterfly: a geranium bronze. Originally from South Africa; introduced to Spain.
We continue, still higher up the Pyrenees.
This video is called red kites in slow motion. See especially after 1 minute 30 seconds into the video.
31 October 2014. After the Llobregat delta of 30 October, and the morning in Bierge, more lower Pyrenees in the afternoon. It is 17 degrees Celsius, warm for the time of the year.
12:40: a red kite, sitting on a pole.
We go to Alquézar. Most geographical names in Spain beginning with Al are originally Arabic, dating from the early Middle Ages when in most of the Iberian peninsula there was Muslim rule. Alquézar village (Alquezra in Aragonese) has it name from the Arabic word for fortress. Jalaf ibn Rasid had a fortress built there. In the eleventh century, Christians conquered it.
There are swallow nests in the old village Alquézar. One might expect: house martins. However, here the nests belong to Eurasian crag martins.
There are rock pigeons in Alquézar too. A bit difficult to say in this rocky environment whether they are wild rock pigeons or domestic pigeons.
There are many canyons in the mountains near Alquézar. At one of them, we saw this blue rock thrush.
After 30 October in Barcelona, we continued to Aragon, more to the west in Spain. Along the road, white storks had built nest on electricity pylons. We arrived in Bierge village, in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains, with its church pictured here.
On the next day, 31 October 2014, Eurasian crag martins circled along the church. Most swallow species are migratory; at least in Spain, crag martins are the only swallows staying all year.
Early in the morning in Bierge. Spotless starlings. A griffon vulture flying far away.
As we walk, a black redstart on the footpath.
Two common starlings sitting next to a spotless relative.
Two rock sparrows on a field.
A crested lark on the road.
A female cirl bunting in a bush cleans her feathers.
A wren.
A meadow pipit.
A skylark, flying.
A robin.
A female chaffinch in a tree.
A woodlark and a song thrush together in a tree.
A griffon vulture flies past.
On the side of the road are burrows. They are nests of bee-eaters, wintering in Africa now.
Scores of griffon vultures on a rock where there is food. A raven joins them.
A bearded vulture and a red kite fly above them.
More black redstarts …
… female …
… and male.
A male cirl bunting singing in a tree.
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