Keith and I spent two days recently birdwatching in the Picos de Europa, a range of mountains in the north of Spain.
On the first day we make our way by cable car to a plateau 1800m about sea-level. We soon find Alpine Accentor and White-winged Snowfinch, two of the highly specialist species of these high mountain plateaus. Unfortunately, the weather turned stormy and we had to leave the plateau before we can find our third target, Wallcreeper.
Photo by Keith
Back down in the valley (still 1000m above sea level) we walk in a forest where we saw Black Redstart and a lot of butterflies.
Photo by Keith
The second day was spent in the mountains again, this time looking for birds of Prey. At a feeding station, we saw over 100 Griffon Vultures and a single Egyptian Vulture.
Moving higher we looked for Bearded Vulture, but although we saw more Griffon Vultures and another Egyptian vulture, the only Bearded Vulture we could see was one in a cage on the mountain side, prior to its release as part of the programme for re-introduction of this species into the Picos.
Pete's Favourite Things 