Field trips - birdwatching in Extremadura

Trips to Extremadura Birdwatching Fair - FIO 2010

2010-03-02T01:19:00.013+01:00

Acknowlegment of funding institutions:

Dirección General de Educación Superior y Liderazgo (Vicepresidencia Segunda y Consejería de Economía Comercio e Innovación de la Junta de Extremadura)
Vicerrectorado de Estudiantes y Empleo (Universidad de Extremadura)
Consejo de Alumnos de la Facultad de Estudios Empresariales y Turismo

Last weekend a group of students went on a trip to visit the FIO 2010 Birdwatching Trade Fair, held at the Villarreal de San Carlos hamlet, the heart of Monfragüe National Park, in Extremadura.

On Friday there were over 50 of us, who had the opportunity to visit the FIO fair. We then went on on a guided tour of the national park. Our excellent guide, Jaime, took us to the Peñafalcón view point where we could watch Griffon vultures galore, but also a very active Peregrine and even a Spanish Imperial Eagle, though it soon vanished behind the massive cliff across the river Tagus.

A pair of Black stork was apparently waiting for us, for there they were, at ease, on a rock top nearer the waters of the Tagus.

At the Tajadilla viewpoint we had lunch and there it was, awaiting also on the top rock, as crowning the cliff, a proud Egyptian vulture, overlooking the visitors of the park, across the tributary of the Tagus, the river Tiétar, roaring with the rushing waters let from the revervoir nearby. Our friends, the Azzure-winged magpies had also part of our lunch, and some keen photographer took one nice shot of one of them. Below, on the river bank across, a few cormorants were drying their feathers or diving into the light brown waters seeking fish.

Then we followed the winding road and over the damm to the La Báscula viewpoint, where Jaime explained about Black vulture nests on cork oaks.

But the route would bring further amazing sights. Apart from the not few Red deer does seen from the coach, we had a remarkable sight of a pair of Egyptian vultures perching on dry branches of an old tree. And only but a few hundred metres away a pair Black vultures, one on the nest, the other nearby on guard. Beautiful. And all this from just the vantage point over the Tiétar at the La higuerilla ("the little fig tree") viewpoint.

Back to the coach we still had the time to see another pair!!! of Black storks on their nest on a rocky ledge by the waters of the Tiétar.

We finished with an incredible sight of the amazingly beautiful Blue rock thrush, a sight that made for the much missed Eagle owl, elusive this year even for the more skilled and experienced birdwathers around.

On Saturday we started the route earlier because the weather outlook was far from promising. We were over a score and a half. A more reasonable number for birdwatching. The route was the same but the gloomy and windy day seemed to bear down on the birds, that did not show up in the variety and numbers of the day before. Yet, a few of us had the luck to watch a neat sighting of a Bonelli's eagle, flying along the La Tajadilla cliff.

We went back sooner because the Xynthia gusts had made the authorities close the fair for the day. Most of the pavilions uphill in Villarreal had been blown down by the wind. Fortunately, our fellow students working in the main exhibition area were safe and safe we all got back to Cáceres city.

Those who attended the stall of our Faculty of Business Studies and Tourism on Sunday found everything in place the next day. The FIO opended regularly and lots of people poured in eager to visit and see the exhibits. I also called in to see our students and have my own third route of Monfragüe in three days. The day even had some sunny spells, and the crows at La Higuerilla of Saturday had left, to the advantage of the pair of Egyptian vultures, that were back, giving company to the breeding pair of Black vultures.

FIO 2010

This is our fifth year at the FIO in Monfragüe and as always it has been a pleasure to count with scores of enthusiastic students trying to learn about the manifold opportunities that nature can offer as regards sustainable tourism activities. Thank you all so much.

Jesús

Summer and early autumn '09

2009-10-26T11:36:00.012+01:00

Latest pics from short fieldtrips in Extremadura

Damselflies (Sp caballitos del diablo) and short-toed eagle (Sp águila culebrera) in a gorge at La Vera , spoonbill (Sp espátula) and yellow wagtail (Sp lavandera boyera) at the Los Canchales resevoir and snipe (Sp agachadiza), thekla lark (Sp cogujada montesina) and otter! (Sp nutria), at the Embalse de Talaván reservoir under the spell of the call above, of crane flocks.

Otters

playing, at ease, on the reservoir quiet waters

at Talaván

Thekla lark

Snipe

Great bustards

Yellow wagtails

Spoonbill

Short-toed eagle

green damselfly
azzure Damselfly

European Bee-eaters (Merops Apiaster, Sp. Abejaruco)

2009-05-06T21:53:00.007+02:00

For me the call of bee-eaters, this colourful bird, represents the sound of a typical warm and shiny Spring day in Extremadura. I hope you like it.

This video was shot within a 20-minute drive from home, from Cáceres.

And here you have a closer look at them, though neither of them in the picture seem to dare look at the other... Well, just for the sitting of the picture, really.

A picture series of Little owl from my window at home in Cáceres, and a video of a pair

2009-03-13T15:58:00.016+01:00

A Little owl (Athene noctua, Sp. mochuelo), perching on an aerial of a ten-story house, in town, in Cáceres. Yesterday afternoon, we heard the double 'ki-iu' call and there it was, on the rooftop of the building across the street. This was a perching favourite for a family of kestrel last spring, too. You see, as I keep saying, Extremadura should translate into English as 'Birdland'. The same as we have Greenland or the Netherlands (the low lands), Extremadura should and no mistake be called Birdland. This afternoon at around 1 p.m. I looked in the same direction just in case and there it was, again. By the time I took out my videocamera, some maintenance work scared it but at around 4:30 p.m. we at home heard the unmistakable call and there it is yet, as I write these very lines. A pity work is also calling me, and a long working weekend, for one, awaits me, depite the beautiful afternoon we're having at the moment. That's life in the mid-sized Spanish city, I suppose.

Saturday: today, in the morning, it called again but it wasn't alone...

... and on Saturday afternoon I finally caught its eye, bright olive, to my delight:

And evening came, fledged with different,
golden hues:

Finally, I got a video of the pair at dusk a week later:

Two albums on our Birdwatching guided tour of Monfragüe National Park, Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain and pictures of students attending our stand

2009-03-03T21:25:00.005+01:00

Click here for the Pictures of the TRIP TO MONFRAGUE NATIONAL PARK - FIO'09

For the rest of the Pictures with people attending the stand on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as for pictures of some birds and more, click on the album below:

Other pictures from FIO 2009

An osprey catch on a save-the-Sierra-Brava day

2009-02-22T20:04:00.009+01:00

WE went on a demonstration to save the most important wintering area for Common Crane (grus grus, Sp. grulla común) in Extremadura (Spain), using the Via Verde to walk from Madrigalejo to the Casas de Hito reservoir. It was organized by SEO/BirdLife.

The regional authorities have approved a development of a huge two-solar power plant project (one will fill up the entire rice-field background behind some of the birdwatchers/ demonstrators above). We wonder whether the regional authorities want them as the new hip on a nice "green" type of scenery, the panels to be built. These solar panels will literally wall this birdwatching/walking tract of the Via Verde (Spanish for "greenway"), the only one in Extremadura?! For God's sake, it is a ZEPA, Spanish for SPA, the area we are talking about.

BESIDE the solar farm themselves, what about the power lines to be built from there to Valdecaballeros (in the Extremadura southern province of Badajoz). Isn't Extremadura one of the less populated regions in Europe (26/km2)? An area of a quarter bigger than Belgium (density 345/km2). There is so much space for clean energy in Extremadura..., c'mon!

POLITICAL wit apart, we were at our scopes and binoculars, watching cranes feeding, others in "V" formation crossing over our heads, and lots of wild fowl on the reservoir, red avadavat and other passerines all around us... when we suddenly saw an osprey approaching. The video and our comments there tell the rest:

An Osprey finally gets a catch and escapes from a doggedly insistent pair of Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus, Sp. Gaviota reidora) who were apparently annoyed by its company.

The day ended with an impressive sight, a huge concentration of well over 4,300 Black-tailed Godwit, (Limosa limosa, Sp. Aguja colinegra) in the rice fields of the Santa Amalia area. They were in company of a well over a hundred Spotted Redshank (Tringa erythropus, Sp. Archibebe oscuro) concentration (one of the greatest, I am told, ever recorded in Extremadura), some Black-winged Stilt (himantopus himantopus, Sp. cigüeñuela) and Golden Plover in the tens (pluvialis apricaria, Sp. Chorlito dorado). The list could never end, anyway. Jesús Porras lead us to them as wisely and wittily as one can. Thanks, Jesús, as always.

Field Trip: the Monroy-Trujillo (Cáceres-Spain) road: cranes, dehesa and snow backdrops

2009-02-15T14:37:00.008+01:00

IN the picture you can see some wintering cranes, full of expectation in a break from feeding from acorn and other, under the canopy of holm-oak dehesa. Their pic was taken on Valentine's Day, this year. A shiny one after the long, hard winter in the Southwest of Spain, in Extremadura. They will soon be going back to their breeding havens in northern Europe: Germany, Scandinavia, Russia...

See the video here:

Link for more pics: album of the trip. I took them on a journey full of great surprises, nice weather after the hard winter days of this seemingly never-ending season and good company. Dehesa, cranes and some of their azzure-winged magpies as companions, a red-legged partridge, kestrel, griffon vulture and some nice backdrops of snow capped mountains of the La Vera district with holm-oak dehesa on the foreground.

I hope you enjoy it as we did!

Jesús

****************************************

Videos taken in the past:

Always curious and playful to the layman eye, these azzure-winged magpies (Cyanopica cyana, Sp. Rabilargos, local: Rabúo, Mohino) are actually looking for breadcrumbs and leftovers of fruit and the like that visitors to Monfragüe National Park leave there. After a while, flocks of them will range the area and come closer enough and ready for a snapshot or a video recording like the one here. This was taken during the FIO '06 International Birdwatching Fair of Extremadura, Spain. During a visit to the fair and the park by 1st year Tourism students at the Faculty of Business Studies and Tourism, University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain.

A Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea, Sp. Garza real) swallowing a catch, a carp maybe at "El Salor", one of Cáceres nearby reservoirs, Extremadura, Spain.