Spain Trip May 2025 - Part 2 Castilla y Leon and south to Extremadura

Our plan was to work our way southwards to Andalucia and our next stop was still in the Castile and Leon region, at the Natural Park of Las Batuecas-Sierra de Francia. I had noted an accessible walk which I thought suited my dodgy knees and hips much better! As you can see, it wasn't exactly warm and my brother was very pleased to have a thick blanket over his sleeping bag. Rather him than me in a tent in northern Spain in May - I can put the heating on in our Moho! 😀

Our walk was a loop past a number of century old chestnut trees which were huge! Some of the path was on boardwalk which is great for easy walking. We had been higher up to a monastery earlier in the day but it wasn't very picturesque and the clouds rolled in and spoiled the view, so no point posting those photos.

It may have been chilly but the sun was shining and there were wildflowers which make my heart sing. This yellow flower is another rockrose, Cistus lasianthus (according to PlantNet), with common names of Lisbon False Sun-rose or Woolly Rockrose.

The trees were late coming into leaf here but what caught my eye the most was this amazing lichen, which is really long and hairy! It could be Ramalina farinacea but I know very little about lichens so if you know better, please let me know!

I caught a glimpse of snow capped peaks as we were driving south so I took this photo with my phone through the windscreen. You can see how lovely it looked everywhere with all that yellow Broom!

The map below gives an indication of where we were - we started off in Castile and Leon, by the Portuguese border, and worked our way south to Extremadura. As we'd seen a lot of this region a few years ago, we only visited one town and drove through the Monfrague National Park again, as it was along the way.

Credit: Orangesmile.com

In the park we went to Gypsy Leap where the Griffon Vultures all hang out. If you are lucky you may see other less common vultures. We weren't lucky in that respect.

There aren't any Griffons in my photos but there were loads of them around.

We were lucky though as this Rock Bunting (Emberiza cia) came and perched not far below us and the water behind made for a lovely clear photo - taken by Keith. This bird is a lifer for us! The black markings on its head are similar to those of the Cirl Bunting. They are both very handsome birds.

Another great sight was this Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) sitting on its nest across the water from us.

It then stood up and surprise - it had been sitting on two eggs! Seeing things like that are always wonderful.

Mr Stork then came in to land and stood beside his wife on the nest, with the babies to be. 💕

A quick note about what's going on here - the workmen have just finished and then on Monday, the removals company are bringing our things back! In between we have to clean - I don't know why I went and washed the floor in the bedroom after the tiling was finished as I've had workmen traipsing through it to the bathroom these past three weeks. The garage is really dusty so it's a good thing our stuff isn't there, after all. Then we will be busy putting all our things back in place in the garage and bedroom so I don't know if I will have time to do another post before we go away - we are heading off to Italy at the beginning of September. I will post some photos from the work going on here after our return. I took loads of photos as you can imagine! (All went well, thank goodness!!!)

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.

The Valley du Galbe revisited

I was very interested to see what the Galbe valley would be like later in the summer, and K didn't need much persuading, so we set off up to the mountains on the 9th August. There are a lot of photos in this post so you'd better get yourself a nice cup of something hot or a glass of something cold, and sit down to scroll through!

We had been hoping there would be some Apollo butterflies around, but it was not to be. Never mind, it was still as exciting up here as it had been seven weeks earlier.

The first thing we noticed were all the people around! I really hadn't expected that many, but by the time we got to the car park (down a long unpaved road from the hamlet where we engaged 4 wheel drive - it reminded me of driving in Fiji!) and started out on the walk, other people became a bit more sparse and didn't stop me from taking photos of butterflies etc, thank goodness!

Despite having dried out somewhat, there were still plenty of different wildflowers about. In the sun the vast majority were Knapweed and Scabious - always good for attracting butterflies and pollinators.

Below on the left is a really attractive Pink - Dianthus hyssopifolius or the Montpelier Pink. In the other pictures are Knapweed and Achillea, but with a pink variety as well as the white, which was rather pretty.

The patch above was a little field that hadn't been cut for hay, and was alive not just with the wildflowers but also Skippers. I saw Small Skippers and Essex Skippers, and even this mating pair on a Knapweed stem, which I think were Essex Skippers (Thymelicus lineola) but it is hard to tell.

In this picture I believe the top photo is a Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) (red tip to antennae) and the images below is of an Essex Skipper (black on underneath of tip of antennae and a bit more black around the outside of the upper wings).

However I have no clue what this interesting moth is! I saw a couple of them, buried into flowers.

Despite some of the grass having been grazed, there were still plenty of wildflowers and Fritillaries galore flying about. The one below I think is a Knapweed Fritillary (Melitaea phoebe).

This was the best picture I could get of this Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia).

Sometimes you just can't help getting an annoying blade of grass in the way; where butterflies are concerned you just have to put up with it in many instances if you don't want them to fly away! This is a Dark Green Fritillary (Speyeria aglaja) which I have only seen once before in the Eyne Valley, which is not too far away from here.

And this is a lifer! The High Brown Fritillary (Fabriciana adippe). Now what was I saying about annoying blades of grass - or stems - in the way?! 😀

When we went past the refuge that I showed in my June post, we noticed people coming out so decided to have a look inside, as we have never been in one before. It was quite cosy - room for about 10 people with two tables, a double bed in a nook and four double sized bunks with single mattresses (didn't like the look of them very much), so plenty of room for people to spread out. There was a pot belly stove indoors for the winter with dry firewood and some kitchen equipment and some food basics in a little pantry cupboard. I didn't see a tap but there must have been water somewhere and as for toilet, no idea, a convenient bush I expect! There were already some large backpacks dumped in there by I imagine people off to do a walk and then come back later. (We also saw quite a few people with serious backpacks walking along the path as it leads to higher up and more mountain refuges further on). Outside was a large fireplace/bbq for summer cooking. If you have a sleeping bag and can avoid putting your head or body directly on the mattress then I am sure it is perfectly comfy and cosy if you are into long mountain hikes. I'll stick to my own bed or the moho, though, thanks very much! 😀

As far as blues went, it was all about this silvery blue one - the Chalkhill Blue (Lysandra coridon)! Another lifer for me. I've seen the Provence Chalkhill Blue which was flying at a time when the Chalkhill doesn't, otherwise it can be very difficult for the layman to tell the difference, other than the Provence tends to be greyer and the Chalkhill a bit more blue. So I am calling these ones Chalkhills! (I have lots of photos, I'm not just trying to ID from one photo.)

I found a bunch of butterflies puddling on mud near the stream. Nearly all are Chalkhill Blues plus either a Small White or Green Veined White (hard to tell), but when I looked closer at my photos I spotted a Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus) in the top left corner. You will need to click to view larger and what you are seeing is a butterfly with wings closed with a dark coloured underwing with a white vertical line. However I can zoom in and I've seen the identifying spots and markings. I have this at home and they are very much attracted to pea family plants, not just to lay eggs on but also to nectar on. They can actually be a pest in some places. There are actually six butterflies in this picture.

Back near the car park is the picnic area in the shade beside the stream. I was amazed to see lots of white Astrantia major flowering, as I'm used to it as a garden plant. With it is this pretty wild Lettuce (Latuca sp.) and the pink flower - see below. Also lots of the Dianthus hyssopifolius was flowering in the heavy shade too and didn't seem to mind sun or shade.

The pink flower looked just like Scabious to me, but the leaves were completely different. After a bit of research I have learned that it is the related Knautia dipsacifolia. On the left is Aconitum sp., commonly known as Monkshood or Wolfsbane, amongst other names.

We then drove back to the tiny village of Espousouille to where we had walked beside the wildflower meadows seven weeks earlier. As I had expected, they had been cut for hay. A bit surprising really as there were more flowers than grass in some places earlier! There were still wildflowers growing along the edges of the road (this is not the road we drove on! This is a new, lovely flat road which leads to the car park but only for walking on, it seems. Makes no sense at all!). We walked a little way but it was really getting hot and there was no shade, so we returned to have a look at the little stream, near where we had parked.

Well the stream was certainly a lot calmer than it had been in mid June!

Looking in the other direction.

We then decided to return to the village of Railleu where we had gone in June as I seem to recall Apollos had been seen there the year before. Still none! We had a nice scenic drive there though as our satnav decided to take us on a very long way round to the village, but I didn't mind, despite K grumbling all the way. 😁

A lot of butterflies were flitting through the village but mostly too fast to ID them, until we came to a Buddleia growing in an overgrown garden which was alive with butterflies! Below is another Dark Green Fritillary, and there were also lots of Silver Washed Fritillaries which I hadn't seen in the valley of Galbe (though seen plenty of them before). Too fast for photos though! I also saw a Jersey Tiger Moth.

The highlight though was this Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris - what??? how the hell do you pronounce that!!!) taking a break on a windowsill! I expect K got some nice photos with his camera and fancy lens, but I am more than happy with my own photo, as it was pretty close!

On the way back home we stopped beside the area where we had seen the Red Backed Shrike in June as the stony banks looked interesting with wildflowers and some butterflies flitting. These Pinks appealed to me as they were such a splash of pink here and there as we were driving past. They are Dianthus balbisii and grow in hot and dry places. Although I didn't get any more decent photos I saw here Meadow Brown, Clouded Yellow, Marbled White and a Glanville Fritillary, taking my Fritillary tally for the day to six, which is not bad!

All in all just as interesting here in summer as spring.