A short trip to Spain: Parque Natural Las Batuecas - La Sierra de Francia & Salamanca. A bit of rain on day one, loads of rain on day two and three...
Griffon vulture Gyps fulvus; one of several that soared above us in between showers.
So why not walk the water trail? The 6 km long Camino del Ague is an easy hiking trail that leads through a valley and two small villages, Mogarraz and Montforte de la Sierra (where nothing happens on a Saturday afternoon). The trail itself is great. We passed by several water streams, crossed various old stone bridges and enjoyed a beautiful deciduous forest, full of oaks, castaños, madroños and a bunch of other things we don’t see near our place in Portugal anymore as it all got destroyed by the Eucalyptus mafia.
A small section of the trail consist of what seemed to be a dried up water stream. We were probably lucky to have walked the trail on the first day of our stay…
Elsewhere in the park, through a gap in the clouds we observed the meandering El rio Alagón… and what seemed to be a patch of Eucalyptus trees??
Unfortunately the only wolf Canis lupus that occurs in the park is the one in the visitor center. Any other wolf would probably get shot by one of the many hunters in the area.
In Salamanca I was hoping to see the Spanish sparrow Passer hispaniolensis, but all sparrows at our lunch table seemed to be House sparrows P. domesticus.
That was probably also the case with this odd looking bird in a nearby city park; a largely leucistic P. domesticus I assume, or maybe with some domestic canary blood?
