Hi guys, day 9, I think, of our Spanish adventure. Thanks so much to those of you who commented on my last post - sorry, have not as yet got round to stealing K’s laptop in order to reply! Last night I had no internet connection on my iPad and K had a very occasional weak one through his laptop (the phone had lost any signal on our second day at that campsite, very strange as it was fine the day before). So I spent my time playing around with some of my photos on Snapseed.
I’m going to leave the bird posts until we come back, as most will be better after an edit on a big screen, but I do want to share this one. We were at a small reserve/lagoon yesterday just south of Valencia, in a hide with a lot of wader and duck activity, when a Kingfisher landed on a tree next to me. No one else in the hide noticed so I snapped away happily, but I was rather disappointed with the results because (1) I was shooting through glass and (2) the bird was very backlit so I had to really underexpose to get any details. But with a Snapseed filter and a bit of extra editing, I have brought up some of the colours. I actually got some more photos of one in the sun, but just as I was zooming in, it flew off!
Do click on the image to view larger as you will probably see many more details than on the smaller photos in amongst the text.
Back to our trip - we spent four nights in Peniscola, which is just south of the Ebro Delta, in the Valencia province. The campsite we had planned to stay at was full! That’s a first for us. They directed us to another site, a bit closer into the town but quite a tight squeeze and not the nicest of pitches, as it had been very wet, and did rain again one night. But we’ve had lovely weather every day.
The day we had a wander around the town, we had lunch opposite the castle, which appeared to close whilst we were sitting there, so we never visited, as we had other things planned for the other days. To be honest, we were so stuffed after a fantastic tapas lunch with the freshest fish and squid I’ve ever had fried like that, that we were both rather pleased we did not have to climb up and down stairs to visit the castle!
The old town up on the hill is lovely, very Greek with white buildings and lots of Greek blue shutters and windows etc. Here’s me in front of one of the gates into the old town.
Many of the balconies have pretty tiles on the underside - what a brilliant idea!
The church next to the castle.
A part of the castle - we weren’t anywhere where we could get a good shot of the whole of it!
I love the decoration on the buildings - they all have the same size very narrow balconies, only big enough for plants, but some people really go to town and many have these tall narrow cacti on them, or varied cacti on the ground like here!
Keith given a Snapseed filter - he took a shot of me here but I had my eyes closed! 🙄😄
Looking back over the new town from the old town.
One day we visited the small town of Morella, about an hour inland. Again, it has a castle up on the top of a hill with the town below it. This castle was higher up so I never had any plans to walk up to it (I’m saving my energy for walking on the birding days) and K was in complete agreement! It’s also quite difficult if you want to eat out for lunch to then go doing that kind of exercise!
I didn’t get to editing any of these, so they are just SOOC, as they say, Straight Out Of Camera. I also have not given you any historical info, it’s all too much on the iPad so there’s a link to Wikipedia above about this town.
Views from the town over the countryside, and from the town to the castle.
It was really arid here inland, yet so green by the coast!
Birding has been hit and miss with some places abundant with wildlife, and others with very little birdlife, although always there are dragonflies (mostly Red-veined Darters) and I’ve seen a good butterfly, a Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus)!
That’s it for now, off birding again tomorrow then we start our slow journey back, stopping at more coastal places for a mix of old towns and nature. 😄
Hola from Espana! We are away for a three week trip in Mary Moho, starting off at our favourite bird reserve just south of Roses and close to the French border. It’s not the best time of year for birding, having missed the migration season and it seems, being before all the overwintering ducks come in, but we still enjoyed two days full of birds, butterflies and dragonflies!
Ok, I’m not going to type lots as I’m on my iPad, so here are some photos, some cropped but none edited apart from a couple with some instant filters. Much easier than faffing around in Lightroom! 😂😂😂
Flamingos above and Little Grebe below.
This creature took some Googling as I didn’t bring an insect book (only my butterfly book), but I got there in the end. Believe it or not, it’s a grasshopper! It’s a Common Cone-headed Grasshopper, though I’m not sure how common it is! I know it’s head makes no sense, but it’s mouthparts are well below the eyes - look just above the first leg and you will see it, then the head shape starts looking more like a grasshopper, rather than an alien!
There were a lot of yellow flowers (don’t know name of plant) which was attracting a lot of butterflies. Clouded Yellows were one of them.
This butterfly was confusing me as it looked something like a Marbled White whilst flying, yet more like one of the Cabbage Whites with its wings open. My butterfly book came to the rescue, and I am pretty sure it is a Bath White, which is a lifer for me!
(By the way, I am not posting the Latin names this time as it’s just an additional hassle on my iPad.)
The red dragonfly, I think, is a Red-veined Darter, yet the one above was flying everywhere with it (by it, I mean loads of them). They have the same pterostigma markings, yet the one above is nothing like a female Red-veined (or any other red darter which I googled), so I have no idea what is is!
I don’t know the species, no time for googling frogs as well as insects! 😄
It had rained a lot recently here after a very hot dry summer, so water had been available to pump into the lagoon, which sometimes dries out in summer, and is used for animal grazing.
An Egyptian Goose, with female behind it, given a filter as it was in heavy shade.
A turtle of some sort, I’ll be IDing when I get home!
This is a Camargue horse, which graze all over wetland areas like this, as they are perfectly at home in wet meadows.
Phew, I think that’s enough, on an iPad this blogging is a real pain in the rear! Today we have arrived in Peniscola, in the top end of the province of Valencia. It is very wet here and has rained since we arrived! The forecast is due to change and be about 28c though, so looking forward to that. I’ll be back in a few more days when I have some more to share, though I will have to use K’s laptop to reply to comments.
The Pont du Gard is a remarkably well-preserved Roman viaduct bridge crossing the river Gardon in the (guess what😀) Gard department. It was built to carry water from springs near Uzes to the colony of Nimes and was also a toll bridge. The road bridge on the lower section was added in the 18th century.
Keith and I had visited the bridge before, but we were more than happy to revisit so that my brother could see it. Our campsite was close by so we avoided having to pay for the car park! Here we are standing on the 18th century road bridge.
The top two tiers - the water was carried on the top level.
The river is a popular spot for swimming, canoeing and picnicking.
Below is an example of 19th century graffitti, though I can't make any sense of the third line other than the year.
Looking back from the other side of the river, and showing the Roman side (i.e. not the 18thC road bridge side).
There were quite a number of Alpine Swifts nesting in the rock of the bridge which was a surprise - I would have expected to see them nesting up in the mountains whereas we were on quite flat land. Alpine Swifts are larger than common Swifts and have lovely white markings on their undersides, although like common Swifts
they are migratory and overwinter in Africa, and feed and drink on the wing.
Photo Credit: K Allen
You can see the baby Swift in the nest as its wings are sticking out of the crack in the rock! Whether there are others in there as well, I don't know.
Photo Credit: K Allen
One more holiday post to go, then we'll be off on our next trip! I'm not going to do a great long write up of every place we visit though on the next holiday - we are away for three weeks so it would take far too long! 😀
