Spain Trip Oct 2023 - Part 3 Los Barruecos and Trujillo, Extremadura

The interesting granite rock formations and lakes near Caceres were designated a Natural Monument in 1996. The landscape is somewhat surreal, with rounded boulders everywhere, just in this one spot in the middle of the plains. The lakes (actually several but you can't see them all at once due to the rocks) are man-made, dating from the 15th century and were used for agriculture and wool washing. A battle scene in Game of Thrones was filmed here for Season 7.

Walking around the lake looked like a fairly short walk, however, the paths don't go all the way around the outside directly (and we didn't know there were several lakes either!) and so we were walking here there and everywhere, taking about 90 minutes eventually, and it was hot, and we didn't have anything to drink. At one point we thought we could take a short cut, only to come across a boggy stream made wider and muddier by the cattle so had to retrace our steps. All the while I was being moaned at by K because it was my idea to take a 'short' walk around the lake!

I saw my one and only lifer butterfly of the trip here in the short grass beside the lake, and I only noticed it because it was flitting about. It's the absolutely tiny African Grass Blue (Zizeeria knysna) with a wing span of just 18-23mm for males and slightly larger for females. This butterfly is found in Africa, the Iberian peninsular and Cyprus.

In the afternoon we drove across the steppe area from Caceres to Trujillo, which was a bit of an eye-opener. These fields were so arid and yet there were cattle in them, and even more surprising was the amount of bird life! We were able to stooge around slowly and spotted many Wheatears and Stonechats, plus Crested Larks and other little brown jobs. However we failed to see any Great Bustards or either of the two species of Sandgrouse that are to be found in this area.

It gets worse! If you open up the photo, you can just see cattle in the middle of the picture.

We then visited Trujillo, which is a town whose fortunes were made by the conquistadors who returned from Peru, having defeated the Incas. The most famous, and the person in the large statue was Francisco Pizarro, who was born here. The town's castle was used in Game of Thrones as the ancestral home of the Lannisters, in Season 7.

The main square at Trujillo.

Statue of Francisco Pizarro, 1478 - 1541. There is an identical statue in Lima, Peru.

Palace of the Conquest: many mansions were built by the returning conquistadors with their New World riches.

The castle, which has 9th century Moorish origins. It was purely a defensive castle with no residential rooms. Taken from the info board: "The importance of the Trujillo castle lies not only in being an important medieval defensive bastion, but also because of the important events that took place in it. In the time of Pedro I it was chosen so that the king's treasurer, the Jew Samuel Levi, would guard the wealth of the Crown, because it was considered one of the safest fortresses in the kingdom."

Looking down from the castle area.

White storks are fairly common around these areas and these are their nests, built up on metal platforms. They do seem to have a thing about church roofs!

Next post - back to the Romans again. There's no escaping them!

Spain Trip Oct 2023 - Part 2 Monfrague National Park, Extremadura

As we were walking down towards the medieval bridge shown in the previous post, we spotted a hind and fawn. We later learned that they were Red Deer and that a female Red Deer is called a hind, not a doe. They must be used to people around as we were able to walk towards them slowly and get better shots as we got closer. Eventually they moved to the other side of the road, jumped the low wall and disappeared off.

The following three photos are Keith's, taken with his 800mm lens.

My shot - I can fit the whole animal in my viewfinder on my max zoom at 400mm!

Keith suddenly hushed me and pointed to something. Can you see it?

No? OK, look to the right of his head...... I've cropped the image to make it easier.

It's a male, but a young one as the antlers are still small. He wasn't bothered by us, as we were quiet and moved slowly past him. By the way, do you like K's shirt? 😀

After looking at the bridge, we drove around to Salto del Gitano (Gypsy's Leap), which is the main vulture viewing area. We only saw Griffon Vultures which was a bit of a shame, as this area is known for having Black and Egyptian Vultures too. However there were masses of Griffons to make up for it. Maybe when we revisit during breeding season we may see more variety.

These are typical rocks that Griffon Vultures like to perch on (though none in this photo).

Whilst in this place above, suddenly a vulture flew towards us, and landed on a rock below us, relatively close for a vulture sighting. I managed the shot below, just as it was taking off, my best vulture shot so far.

Whereas Keith, with his mega lens, caught this amazing shot! You can really see each feather and its eye clearly and sharply if you click on the picture.

Griffons nest on the rocks and in the middle of this photo below there are the remains of one of their nests, just a small pile of twigs.

Monfrague castle, overlooking Gypsy's Leap.

The plant below was everywhere in the park and growing all through the Dehesa too. It's a species of Broom, Retama sphaerocarpa (or possibly Retama monosperma). Unlike the pea shaped seedpods of most Broom species, the seeds of both these species are not growing together in pods, but appear individually on the plant. It will be magnificent to see them flowering in the spring. From what I've seen on the internet, they can be white as well as yellow.

Next we will move a bit further south, but still in Extremadura.

Spain Trip Oct 2023 - Part 1 Monfrague National Park, Extremadura

We're continuing on with last year's travels; this time it was our three week trip in October to Extremadura in western Spain and Andalucia in southern Spain. The map below shows the two regions we visited and the map below that is of Extremadura. It took us 2.5 days to drive to northern Extremadura, with overnight stops at San Sebastian and Salamanca. Spain is a large country!

Extremadura is cattle country, despite it being so dry at this time of the year that there is barely a blade of grass anywhere. I wondered how the cattle survived to be honest. They are not in fields but in huge open expanses of land, with pools of water that have been dug into the ground for drinking water, but no sign of any other fodder for eating that I could see. Most of the wild areas are called the Dehesa; these are huge grassy plains dotted about with Holm or Cork Oaks, and quite different from anything we have seen before. The landscape is stunning despite the dryness.

Next time we visit Spain we are going in the spring to see the wildflowers, and hopefully there will be more choice of birds as it will be breeding season by then. 

Copyright Spain Spotters

We started off in Monfrague National Park, which is a nature lovers' paradise, particularly if you like vultures! On the map below, it's the area between Plasencia and Caceres where the rivers are wide. These rivers have been dammed and have formed large reservoirs, and it is a hilly area and very scenic.

Copyright Traildino

Our campsite was within walking distance of one of the park visitor centres, which was very interesting. We also made friends with a cat at the campsite. In fact it was so friendly I feared I wouldn't get 'rid' of it, so was rather pleased when it wandered off and started yowling at some other motorhomers! I'm sure the little tinker gets lots of treats (but not from us, we are not stupid where cats are concerned! 😁).

We were also rather chuffed to spot a lifer bird at the campsite our first evening there. This was at dusk so not a very good shot, but it's a record shot all the same. This is an Azure Winged Mapgie and they are a bit smaller than the regular Magpie, and a lot prettier. We saw them around the visitor centre and in the national park too. With their blue colouring they are quite easy to spot flying around.

These are cork oaks, and the reason for the second cropped photo is to show all the different levels of harvested bark. There are four levels here - click on the photo to bring it up larger and sharper. Look from the middle brown patch on the trunk up the main left branch and you should spot them all. Cork is harvested generally every nine years after a first cut when the tree is about 25 years old, so it's not a fast process!

This isn't a great photo as these Cormorants were very distant, but we watched them moving all the way down a reservoir by this strange sort of half run half fly movement, then rest a few seconds in the water, and repeat! I don't quite know why when they are perfectly able to fly normally. Again, click on the photo to see a bit more detail.

Loved this interesting rock formation.

A lichen tree!

Heliotrope (Heliotropium europaeum) was one of the very few plants flowering in Extremadura, as it was the end of the season and very dry everywhere. 

This granite bridge, started in 1450, doesn't really look old looking down on it like this, but if you look at this website you will see pictures of it when the water level is much lower and you can see all the arches beneath.

I'll post the rest from this park in Part 2 as there are too many photos! 😀

Odds and ends from last year

This is a selection of photos from last year which haven't fitted in to any other posts, so I'm putting them all together here.

These are some photos which K took whilst out walking in the local area. This is the first Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus) which he has seen around here.

Turtle Doves (Streptopelia turtur). They are not so common any more, and are far more often heard than seen.

This is a beautiful shot - he heard a Bee-eater (Merops apiaster) on the other side of a shrub from where he was standing and managed to get his lens inside and find the bird without it seeing or hearing him.

One day last July whilst my brother was still staying with us there was a sort of 'pop-up' medieval museum over the weekend. First we had a wander round the old bit of town up on the hill whilst looking for the museum.

Above are old buildings which have been done up on the exterior (boringly!), whereas below, there are quite a number of houses still in their old state. Many show signs of different repairs/renovations over the years. I think this one below is a gallery of some sort.

A rather interesting window!

Above the door arch in this building is a stone engraved with the year of the building - 1617.

The museum was really interesting. It was held by a husband and wife team who were passionate about all things medieval and take part in reenactments. They had been collecting, and making, medieval clothes, arms and tools over the years, and were so enthusiastic about it they just loved sharing their knowledge with visitors.

Below are mostly surgeon's tools. Makes my blood run cold just thinking about it! Also, in that box in the front are coins, dating from Roman times through to medieval and beyond. I asked the lady where she got them from and she said she had found them in her garden in the village!

She also made chain mail, a very time consuming labour of love. The husband had an enormous display of weapons and small working replicas of things like trebuchets. We spent about an hour here in these two small rooms, as there was so much to see and the couple were so interesting.

Onto the garden - Southern Green Shieldbugs (Nezara viridula) were a bit of a pest on my tomatoes. They were swarming over one of the trusses of a cherry tomato piercing the skin of the fruit, leaving spotty marks on them and rendering the fruit inedible - none of them tasted nice after that. Here though, it's on a Garlic Chive flower, not causing any harm.

This isn't the adult which is more of a plain green. This is one of the later stage instars, which I think is very pretty.

Another pest, but I still like it, is the Geranium Bronze (Cacyreus marshalli) from South Africa, which lays its eggs on geranium plants.

This is a Tabasco chilli and it's the first time I've grown one, so I was surprised to see how the fruit grew pointing upwards instead of the usual hanging downwards. They were also extremely hot!

I didn't plant that Verbena bonariensis. When I planted the tomatoes and chillies which I bought as small plants from the garden centre, I mixed up a bit of our own home grown compost with bought compost. Suddenly I had tomatoes, parsley and verbena seedlings all growing in the pots! I potted up some of the Verbenas and left the rest in place as they were too close to the other plants, so we got a lot of free colour on the patio last summer! I shall be planting some of them around here and there in the garden. It's funny, as I had planned on buying some seeds this year to grow a few to add to the garden as they are rather short lived perennials, and my old ones need replacing. 😀

When the Autumn Lady's Tresses orchids (Spiranthes spiralis) appeared, I tried to take photos of some, but Harry decided to plonk himself down in front of the camera! Luckily you can see the flowering stalk in front of him.

A Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) nibbling his/her toes!

Fast forward to this year and whilst doing some tidying of my shrubs recently, I finally came across my first ootheca, which is the egg case of the Praying Mantis! This one is an old one where the young have hatched out, but it was still an exciting find.

Now I just want to find one which still has living eggs/grubs inside so I can hope to find some tiny young mantises, as they look so cute!

I have moved some of the Wasp Spider egg sacs to safe places under shrubs or the hedge as I came across them whilst tidying up. K also cleared up the ditch this year as it was so overgrown with brambles and Old Man's Beard, and I remembered where the egg sacs were that I had found last year, so moved them too.