Gems in rocky places



















During our supposed low season, I often do short pieces of work for the charity Save the Children, for whom I used to work full-time. This usually involves trips of about a week or so to give training and mentoring to teams of people managing programmes of work in different parts of the world. The last few weeks have seen me in South America, the Middle-East and South Africa. It is very different from life in Extremadura, keeps me in touch with former colleagues and gives me the chance to meet some wonderful and inspiring people making a real difference to children's lives. Of course as far as life and birdwatching in Extremadura is concerned there really is no such thing as a low season - there are always jobs to do in the garden and always great birds to see. During my brief stopovers here I have managed to pick olives for curing, cleared up old olive suckers for burning and started preparing the vegetable garden for the winter. The autumn is an exciting time for birding as the migration continues and winter visitors start to arrive. There are now hundreds of Common Cranes already here and the sunny days are encouraging Woodlarks to sing over the garden, accompanying the autumnal song of our wintering Robins. Being away for much fo the time I have managed to miss some national rarities that have made an appearance here: Pectoral and Buff-breasted Sandpipers. One wonders how many other North American species come through the area...there is a lot of suitable habitat and very few birders. The visiting birders who have stayed with us this month have had a rewarding time. Eagles are much harder to find at this time of the year, but otherwise most of the sought-after species have been seen. Tom and Greg Mabbett stayed a week in the middle of the month and were fortunate enough to come across a Wallcreeper in Monfragüe National Park See the attached photo of their's). These are gorgeous little birds, real gems with butterfly like wings revealing a beautiful crimson feathers. They nest in the Pyrenees and were considered to be extremely rare in Extremadura. However, in recent years in October there have been single records, suggesting that there is a passage through the area. Some may spend the winter here too. In 2008, I took a family to a peak high in the Villuercas mountains in early January, looking for Alpine Accentor. We sat on rocks overlooking a deep gully when suddenly a crimson and grey shape flew across. It showed itself again a few minutes later. My first Wallcreeper in Extremadura and at the time only the seventh record. It was one of those wonderful days when cloud covered the landscape below, whilst we sat in sunshine. Looking across the mattress of white cloud, one could pick-out in absolute claity other distant high peaks. The thought crossed my mind that all the Wallcreeper needed to do to reach here was to fly from one peak to another (island-hopping, as it were), all the way from the north. This Wallcreeper stayed at that site for two months, was seen by other birders and even makes a mention in Alan Davies and Ruth Miller's book The Biggest Twitch!

Comments

Unknown said…
A great read Martin ,thanks.Keeps me in touch with an area I love ,and try to visit every year.Would love to see a Wallcreeper at Monfrague!
I agree wholly with you previous post about Garden Warblers.They were very common this year,with many breeding pairs . I have just seen ,what may be my last of the year up here in Northumberland. Two birds on passage in coastal bushes ,together with many common migrants, as well as 5 yellow browed Warblers,a Barred Warbler and a Red f.Bluetail! One of them looked very tired ,and I thought they may well be from Scandinavia or Russia,looking at the origin of the other birds.I hope they make it !
Regards,Alan.
Anonymous said…
I enjoy every new post in your blog. They keep me in touch with Extremadura, which we will visit again at 2011 Easter period. Our first visit at yours was last july & first August days, when we were the only visitors at your casa rural.Although the extremely hot weather we enjoyed our stay there & i was glad to observe about 10 new species & subspecies.
I have never seen an Wallcreeper. Surprisingly here in Greece during Winter can be observed except of the mountains, at steep coastal cliffs of islands of north aegean sea like Thasos !

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