Pico Dorsiblanco

The Irati Beech Forests in the Western Pyrenees

It's impossible to show the magnitude and sheer hugeness of a beech forest (170 square kilometres) in one picture. The trees are protected in a national park and grow to be very very tall (100 feet plus). The rain in Spain probably contributes to the height and lushness, as experienced by us today. 

In the late afternoon, after a fraught hurricane picnic in Sylvia (with doors being slammed by the wind), the sun came out. As we drove along the neat national park road in the forest, I heard loud woodpecker calls and then saw the bird busily engaged on a mossy stump. 

The mossy stump 

We stopped the car and all hell broke loose. One of the rarest birds in Spain had just been sighted and identified as Pico Dorsiblanco or the White-backed Woodpecker and there was much running and shouting and wishing that the cameras hadn't been left in Sylvia. Pico moved on to the base of a nearby tree and caused more blood-pressure raising in the watchers - who should and could have got pictures. Phew. I could have done with a cuppa afterwards. 

The bird in the book

We saw the female without the red top to the head, as in the top right of this picture.

Cowslips and orchids

These are in all the meadows in profusion but not easy to take pictures of in the rain, carrying an umbrella and trying to keep the camera dry.

View from one of the bedroom windows

Note the beech forest in the background. Also the half dozen cows to the bottom left of the picture - the breakfast milkers. We heard a Tawny Owl for the first time last night, very loud and close - when I accidentally switched on a light in the early hours of this morning. I just happened to move an arm. Cockerels didn't turn out to be a problem. The problem was the comfortable bed.