Hi All,
I promised that I would do a trip report when I got back from Spain, so here it is….. those easily bored are advised to look away now!
General Admin
Flew Easyjet from London Gatwick to Madrid Barajas – cost £117 return for 2 of us. Flights were OK and more-or-less on time.
We hired a car from Auto Europe via Opodo – cost £118 for 6 days. Being the last of the big spenders, we’d plumped for a top-of-the-range Toyota Yaris diesel, which actually coped OK with the dodgy roads etc. A more prudent (but expensive!) option would be for a slightly more rugged vehicle, but we got around without any real problems. The car (nominally!) had air-con, which was a good thing.
Road-signage around Madrid is obviously some sort of in-joke, but a combination of some inspired guesswork and blind luck allowed us to find our way around the ring-road and onto the N5 heading SW towards Extremadura. Distance from Madrid to Trujillo is approx 280kms.
We were fooled by the weather…… Forecasts we had seen before leaving suggested daily maxima of around 16-20c, which may have been true, but we failed to take into account the power of the sun which raised the perceived temperature by 10c or so. Upshot of all this was that various long-sleeved garments did not exit the suitcase – typical birding attire was t-shirts & copious suntan lotion, with a warm fleece for early morning and evening, when it could get decidedly parky! Forecast rain largely failed to materialize, and when it did, it did it somewhere else, so we had a good week.
Daybreak was just before 07:00 and dusk around 21:15.
We had booked into the Finca Santa Marta near Trujillo for 3 nights. This is a very handsome converted olive-oil mill and winery. It was comparatively expensive at €85 per night for a twin room plus breakfast, but a cut above other accommodation that we used. The garden and grounds are excellent for birding (more on that later!) and all-in-all, I would be happy to recommend it.
There is also an option to take dinner there (€28 pp) and my pre-conceived idea was that the evenings would be a jolly affair, with tall tales and birding gen being exchanged over a few beers, but it did not pan out like that during our week, as the only guests who were socially competent were non-birders. Dinner is at 20:30 (sharp!) so this also means that one of the best times of the birding day is spent travelling back to the FSM etc, so I personally would not recommend taking the dinner option.
Accommodation for the last 2 nights was flexible, our plan being to just find somewhere wherever we happened to be, which turned out to be Sepulveda (approx 120km N of Madrid) and Rascafria (halfway between) at clean, good quality hostels for €45 and €48 per night for a twin room, but no breakfast.
Other than Henri (the boss at FSM, who was Dutch) and Matthieu (his student intern, who was Swiss) we didn’t encounter anyone who spoke any English at all, so we got by on a winning combination of phrase book, fractured Span-gles, much arm-waving and plentiful misunderstandings all round.
Birding gen was gleaned from ‘A Birdwatching Guide to Extremadura’ by John Muddeman (finally got hold of a copy!!!) and ‘Where to Watch Birds in S&W Spain’ by Garcia & Paterson, as well as several informative trip reports found on the internet. If anyone wants any more info, please feel free to drop me a PM.
Day 1 – Madrid and Calera y Chozas
Picked up the hire car and exited Madrid airport at approx 12:30 and headed round the ring-road (think M25, but with all road signs having been put into a blender) and headed down the N5 towards Extremadura. As is usual in Iberia, good birding is to be had from the car, and it wasn’t long before we were spotting our first Black Kites, White Storks, Hoopoes etc. A bonus bird spotted by my companion Brian was a pale-phase Booted Eagle.
Our first planned stop was at Calera y Chozas at K130 of the N5 (Muddeman sites 5&6)
Just coming off the motorway, we spotted a large raptor overhead, which turned out to be our first Griffon Vulture, with a Hobby flitting around it as a bonus. Spotless Starlings perched on the exit guard-rail in silent condemnation of our irresponsible ‘parking’. We headed down to the village and went right, then left after 100m to continue heading in a Southerly direction. After about 5-6kms, we spotted some Red-rumped Swallows, and swung into a handy track entrance just opposite a large workshop.
As soon as we exited the car, we could tell that we were no longer in Kansas as our ears were assailed by the sound of several Nightingales, Golden Orioles, and various Tits and Warblers (as well as aforementioned Swallows and Swifts) We decided to carry on walking down the road to reach an area of lush vegetation around a small stream. From here we were able to see several pairs of Golden Oriole, with a fantastic view of 3 males and a female perched in a nearby dead tree (couldn’t help but think of all those hours and hours spent at Lakenheath, hoping for the briefest glimpse!) and we estimated that there were 6 Nightingales singing within 200m of us.
Crippling views were had of a Melodious Warbler just in front of us and several Sardinian Warblers in the scrub.
Have to say that this incident set the tone for our entire holiday, when stopping the car at any random point led us to some fantastic birding, both in terms of quality and quantity.
We both wanted to see Red Avadavat and eventually managed to track down a flock of these North of the Embalse de Azutan, but it wasn’t at all easy – maybe they are more easily found in their Autumn breeding season. Many Cattle, Little and a single Great White Egret were found in the same area, plus a Purple Heron flew over.
We were under time pressure, and wanted to explore some of the steppe areas, so headed off up the dirt track NW of Calera y Chozas. Our first stop after a few minutes led us to a group of 16 Great Bustards at a distance of 200m or so. In light of subsequent events, this turned out to be a very good sighting – the best we managed nr Trujillo was single birds at long distance. Several Stone Curlews were also in the same field. Driving further down the track we saw many good birds – highlights being Marsh and Montague’s Harriers, Bee-eaters and Woodchat Shrikes, Whinchat and Stonechat.
We were driving along, quite frankly unable to believe our luck so far, when I jokingly said “All we need now is a Black-Winged Kite and we would have had a good day.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I spotted two white blobs on a nearby Olive tree, screeched to a halt and we were able to confirm a fine pair of BS Kites. As we were setting up the scopes for a good look, two Roller flew past and perched on a bush about 100m away. I would highly recommend this area, as these were the only birds of either species that we saw during our trip!
Looking back Eastwards, it was clear that some major rainfall was heading our way, so we decided to retrace our steps rather that go any further. This turned out to be fortuitous, as we were treated to fantastic views of 3 Little Bustards which showed up beautifully against the thunderous sky.
We were already running very late, so re-joined the motorway to continue our journey to Trujillo, racing the approaching storm-front the whole way.
We arrived at the FSM at 22:30 to find that our dinner was in the dog (we were 2 hrs late!) so headed back into Trujillo for a sumptuous feast of left-over tapas, beer and crisps in the first bar we could find, before heading home tired but very, very happy.
(….to be continued…..)
Look forward to reading the rest. I'm sure I recognise the dog in pic 1
Brings back fond memories. The Calera y Chozas track always gives some good birds!