Rock Thrush

A fantastic afternoons birding after work today. On a bit of a whim i decided to trek up onto the big ridge behind the hotel to see what was about. At first there was very few birds but my first grass snake of the year, along with a few good butterflies (green hairstreak, dappled white and europeans and scarce swallowtails) were all interesting enough to spur me further on up a very steep and awkward goat track. I was soon rewarded by a fine pair of Rock Thrush, most unexpected given the relatively low altitude of the ridge, and a most welcome lifer for me. Unfortunately they kept fairly distant, as did another pair found about 1km further along afterwards.



























































From the top of the ridge there were a couple of Crag Martins swooping around far below, unconcerned by the presence of the local Peregrine.





















Green Hairstreak




















Swallowtail







































Walking back along the ridge ths Honey Buzzard flew in high from the North and proceeded to flap around in display flight for a while






































A pair of Alpine Chough were well below their usual altitudinal levels prospecting a nest hole
























































and then a pair of Red-billed Choughs decided to take it over for themselves!!






































Also seen were the resident pair of Egyptian Vultures, Griffon Vultures, Dartford Warblers, Rock Bunting and a pair of Black Redstarts, overall a very productive little session!

Naff Rally

Still no bird photgraphs in sight!! The Hill Climb Rally on the road below the hotel has been rather tiresome this weekend, mainly due to its associated hordes. I did persuade myself to wander down for a brief look which was quite excting for a while. Heres a few shots all taken at the 18mm end of my wide angle lens, it was certainly possible to get close to the action!



















This one roared past so scarily close that for the next hour I couldnt trust my arse with a fart!












































































And this Wood White dropped in for a quick look before being carried off in someones slipstream.

More butteflies

A very tatty Green-veined White



















Adonis Blue


















Mountain Clouded Yellow, a speciality of the moutainous regions of Spain apparently

Woodcock Orchids

There´s currently a superb disply of Woodcock Orchids (or Ophrys) out on the hotel farm, heres a tiny selection:


As close as its possible to get to a "typical" specimen




















A rather dull one




















This monster was the size of my thumbnail




















And then this stunning pale phase individual







































Other interesting stuff of late has been a Golden Oriole singing in the valley in the early mornings and a Short-toed Eagle that flew over yesterday afternoon.

This weekend the road below the hotel hosts some international "Hill Climb" rallying event so the place is going to descend into utter chaos, still the music blaring out from the loudspeakers has been interesting, the odd burst of Ecuador by Sash taking me back to school disco days!

I´l probably be posting loads of car pics over the next few days and what with this "orchidwash" of the pages i´m thinking of changing the blog title from Joes Birding Blog to "Joe´s whatever the hell he can get blog"

Another orchid

Heart-flowered Serapias




















The view over the Picos de Europa from my front door, not bad eh!

Red Squirrel and a few moths

Had a few farily dull moths at the windows last night that i´ve made a half-rsed attempt to i.d, as always, any corrections are most welcome

Flame Shoulder


















Green Carpet















Red Squirrel (not a moth)



















Setaceous Hebrew Character



















And another serapais sp. quite similar to the tongue orchid

Flutterbies

After hard mornings work on the pastures outside the hotel I got out in the afternoon to do a bit of Butterfly surveying. I managed 13 species in a 2 hours including European and Scarce Swallowtail, Cleopatra and Large Wall Brown.


Scarce Swallowtail



















































Orange Tip

















Large Wall Brown



















Small Heath

















Wood White



















Femal Cirl Bunting


















Ooh, and on a completely different, even more pointless note, this is the 100th entry onto thsis blog, yay!

El Sueve sumit

Following yesterdays aborted attempt to climb to the summit of the El Sueve mountain range, I set out again this morning in very promising sunny conditions. Luckily the weather held and after a few hours trekking had made it to the big metal cross on top of the 1159m Pico Pizoreiro (or something along those lines). At only 3km inland from the Bay of Biscay it is apparently the highest point in Europe that close to the sea, I might even try a bit of seawatching from there at some point, cant be much different from looking from the obs balcony at Portland.

Getting to the summit allowed access to some higher altititude birds that I couldnt reach yesterday, including a few singing Water Pipit and masses of Alpine Chough

Also near the summit was another pair of Egyptian Vultures, several Griffon Vultures and a Hobby.

The only other birds of note further down were the same Iberian Chiffchaff, Dartford and Grasshopper Warblers singing in the same places as yesterday.

Water Pipit, it seemed very odd seeing these birds at such a high altitude, being used to them in lowland marshes back home.






































Griffon Vulture




















Raven




















Another Rock Bunting



















Having a good old singsong




















Alpine Choughs
















































Walking back to the hotel produced this damselfly, which I think is a female Beautiful Demoiselle


































An arty (i.e. crap) shot of the Beautiful Demoiselle taking off

















And also this confiding Short-toed Treecreeper which showed very well and was even kind enough to call a few times.