A kettle of storks, a charm of goldfinches and a squadron of jet planes

A day in the desert, at Las Bardenas Reales near the town of Tudela. It's a huge spectacular desert-like area of about 400 sq. kms, with loads of ravines an cliffs and flat topped mesa - like tables. 

This is where the super huge car comes into its own, except for the annoying techie beeping. If these aren't obeyed, the warning lights are even more annoying. The real test is motorway tolls. Whoever is in the passenger seat is challenged to the max when they can't reach the ticket machine and have to remove their seat belt. It's bad enough that it sounds like a major security alert, but when the machine also rejects the ticket for payment and we have to reverse and all that jazz....tis somewhat nerve jangling.

A day in the desert

The day began with a discussion about the origins of collective nouns. We first saw a kettle of storks, then a charm of goldfinches. There weren't enough starlings for a murmuration, but there was a flock of sheep and a herd of cows. 

The subject matter stepped up a gear when we happened to stop the vehicle quite close to where a Montagu's Harrier attacked a flock of Black-bellied Sandgrouse. It didn't grab one, but it caused quite a stir and gave us another species to add to the list. The central area of Las Bardenas Reales is a military zone where there just happened to be 'a squadron' of fighter jets engaged in target practice. We could see old planes on the ground which were being used as targets and could hear the bursts of firing. The jets looked just like birds and were amazing to watch, although it felt a bit unnerving seeing them practice strafing a target - diving sharply towards it, giving a quick burst of gunfire and then sharply changing to a near vertical climb. We're wondering whether 'jet' can be included on our list.

A night in the desert?

We experienced a few road closure issues en route to the next hotel, adding a few miles and two hours extra travelling time. We eventually arrived at an abandoned dirty neglected dump of a hotel. I immediately had visions of spending the night in the super vehicle and all its stuff. What would Bear Grylls do in this situation? Head for the woods probably.

After we'd tried all the doors, buzzers and phone numbers, we headed off for the closest town hoping to find something. It was beginning to get dark and hotels are notoriously difficult to find in little Spanish towns, if there is one at all. We drove to Belchite, a few miles up\down the road, in the middle of another nowhere. I engaged in some delightful 'askings' with the gesticulating fast-talking locals - leading to success. So there Bear Grylls...

The story ended happily and we didn't have to spend the night in the above little desert house. Instead we are in the super-modern minimalist Hotel Oleum (two of four guests). It is brand new and very swish, but feels like staying in a show home/hotel. I'm wondering whether we are on a reality show and have been looking for the hidden cameras. 

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Wrynecks and Firecrests

Didn't find many birds here

This morning's plan was to drive ten miles or so to Laguna Rada, a big puddle of water, in search of riparian woodland. I'd never heard of such a thing, but it is habitat with poplars and willows and other trees. We followed directions given in our very good, tried and tested book and instead found large areas of abandoned greenhouses and derelict buildings. Wind turbines and solar farms were in abundance, as was a chill wind. It's much colder than yesterday and I'm double wrapped. 

Heard a cuckoo and after much more searching, re-located to the Aragon River, close to the town of Caparroso. 

This is the picnic spot, close to where the good birds were found

Made up for a frustrating start to the day when we heard a Wryneck. Over a period of about an hour, we saw three and managed to get pictures of two together on a branch - pretty clever, eh? Of course it wasn't me that took them. At the same time, two tiny angry Firecrests got cross with us and the camera was red hot again. You'll have to imagine these birds for the time being. Blame technology.

 

Children's park - Spanish style

Passed through the little town of Fume and couldn't resist taking a picture of this little park. This was an area where we saw loads and loads of Storks nesting in trees.

Vines and Turbines

I am in the land of vines (Rioja) and wind turbines. The hills are alive with wind and solar stuff, in all directions. Today has been day 1 of attempting to beat last year's total number of birds seen in Spain, taking into account that we're not necessarily always the first to get up and out in the morning. In the same way that boats are all about the back and front, this trip is about veering right (east) as we make our way south, rather than left (west) - as per last year.

The day was spent walking around Laguna de Pitillas in Navarra Province. It is described as being mostly reedy, with little actual water apart from channels. As usual, things have changed and there was plenty of water. 

It didn't take long to find some of my favourite birds - Bittern, Short-toed Eagle, Zitting Cisticola and Hoopoe

Things are going to plan so far, although obviously not all the planned-for birds turned up. My Spanish 'body language' language is still working a treat and the food in this exceptionally friendly hotel, Hospederia De Alesves, is very good. Well it was last night. This is a great time of year to be travelling down through Spain - to the right - as hotels are mostly empty of guests. More fuss made of me - yippee!

Glad to be on dry land

The white horses increased in number last night. The shaking and juddering left me somewhat discombobulated. However, the sun shone brightly through the big round window into the chamber of horrors this morning. There were still white horses aplenty. All this made me wonder how Bear Grylls responds when he has to suffer indoors. 

We couldn't go out on deck for a while as there was a medical emergency which involved winching. I fell over in the shower, but it wasn't for me.

Much later in the day I'm very happily on dry ground. I would post a pic, but have navigated (not ship-like) to Villafranca in Navarra Province and haven't had time to find anything to share. I'm particularly partial to pictures taken through windows. From this window the views over the rooftops are of huge solar and wind farms. 

Last view of the back end

Off to sea!

Peeking out from the bow 

We're sleeping in the stern. Different words could be used for all sorts of backs and fronts of things. Ridiculous sounding ones would be best, to help me remember. 

When I set off on adventures I have such high hopes of blogging. It doesn't take long to realise that it takes very long to achieve anything. The above picture has taken an hour to travel from my photos to the blog. To while away the time, I've walked around the boat/ship - the Pont Aven, done a fair bit of huffing and puffing and have forgotten what I was going to write. 

But I am definitely on a ferry (that's the one), en route for sunny Santander, in search of adventure. The sun is shining now and the sea looks flat calm. The floor is vibrating beneath my holiday feet (probably something to do with an engine) and there is a a very gentle up and downing going on. Hope nothing increases before I've had my gourmet dinner. Last year the adventure on this boat began in the gourmet department, when I found a rather large spider perched on a lettuce leaf on my plate. I didn't photograph it unfortunately, or the gawping waiters.

I've checked out the lifeboats and taken some arty pictures which you won't get to see due to lack of enough hours left on the voyage - never mind. Only twelve minutes to go to dinner!

Fish and Pheasant

All my creativity has been focused on outdoors this week and this mostly doesn't include taking pictures. The sun came out for more than a day and I continued my re-acquaintance with the garden shed and then the garden.

Wearing clumpy old gardening gloves and clearing away what I think should be cleared away, is such a contrast to tippy tapping at my shiny little piece of technology. Of course, if I'm not sure what to do with something in the garden, I can hit at it, drag it out and chop its head off - and then chop or cut it up. Very satisfying. To clarify, I am talking about weeds and overgrown stuff - not people... and especially not the person who gave me a little talking to this morning about how to correctly prepare paper for re-cycling. 

When you want a break from shed, tools and plot, the natural thing to do is visit a garden centre and mingle with exactly the same, but brand new. The plants are pristine, the pretty pictures on the seed packets provide an immediately pleasing paper garden, and the promise of food in the cafe (or restaurant if it's posh) is, well - promising. 

Visited a posh one in Cornwall yesterday and couldn't resist the champagne...

Couldn't resist taking a picture

The post office in our village has re-located to the off licence and I popped out in between gardening to check it out. How unique is this? There is much gossip concerning what will be purchased alongside pensions.

A double picture of me taking a pic of the new post office 

I'm going off-subject again, but this is the partially photographed pheasant that I missed in the neighbour's garden - so it is garden-related. The picture isn't brilliant, especially the eye and head. I heard him from inside and had to run an obstacle course, which included unlocking two doors and forcing a swollen-with-rain noisy door. I'm assuming he's the same one because he was sitting comfortably alongside where the overturned bucket of the other day, used to be. How's that for science?! 

The 'bucket' pheasant

Returning to garden centres - I visited a not so posh one earlier this week. I followed the sound of water, expecting to see fountains and things. Instead I found fish in tanks with hopeful expressions on their little fishy faces. 

Fish queueing to be chosen

Looking for the sun

Nothing too unusual in looking for the sun, except that everyone was looking for it today (yesterday actually). I'm not particularly interested in planetary stuff. So much of it is just so unbelievable and difficult to work out. The tides going in and out; night being dark and day light(ish); Australians not on walkabout upside down; Australians not falling off; us being up here, and them - down there; phases of the moon....and all the rest. I should ask the ten year old boy, who is the youngest in the country to have passed his GCSE astronomy, for an overview. 

When I was persuaded to take an interest in the partial eclipse, I took a peek - through a coloured plastic file - and what I saw was a piece of art in the making. Now that I can understand...

And here it is....

It's not colourful, but blame the camera. This was taken from our house and I could show you quite a few more but I'm sure this gives you a general impression. 

I can't leave it there, because it doesn't represent what turned out to be quite a colourful day. Once the sun and clouds had sorted themselves out, it turned into one of those glorious Spring days, when ALL the gardening equipment has to come out and activities are focused outside - all day. Instead of giving you a picture of the mess (due to rain getting in) of the inside of the shed, the wrecked by badgers lawn, etc. etc., you can have a glimpse of a snatch of colour, located when I just happened to be glancing across at the garden next door. The pheasant had been sunning itself next to an upturned bucket (use your imagination), but by the time I ran in for the camera, it was on the move. 

Fill in the gaps