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.

Abaurrea Baja

The Pyrenean mountain village of Abaurrea Baja

And that's where I am now. See the tall white house in front of the church, with the round window at the apex of the roof? That's our Heidi room(s) and house for a few days. The landscape is Devon-like in many ways, but with more Cowslip meadows, cow bells and high up Griffon Vultures. The cows seem to 'low' rather than 'moo'. No cockerels as yet. I don't know where the bread will come from tomorrow although there'll be no problem with the milk - so long as I don't have to milk anything.

Mountain coffee stop infant Dipper

We stopped off in a small touristy town for a coffee and spent an hour or so, mesmerised by this infant Dipper and its feeding and bobbing activities. 

In a giant beech forest

Before the Dipper stop, we walked along a track deep into a wild beech forest - where we found not a lot - except inspiration for a Narnia story or two. Maybe it's the beech trees which are taking over the world and not the moles or Chaffinches - although there were moles - and Chaffinches.

Arm and hand trees for the Narnia story?

Mole hills and Chaffinches

Panaderia or Okindegia (Basque)

It's like being in Wales, with everything written in Spanish and Basque. The young baker sits outside whilst waiting for the bread to cook. I arrived as he was putting it in the oven and he asked me to come back in ten minutes. I watched him watching us as we watched birds from the bridge nearby.

An earlier model of the baker's seats

Burgui - the scene of baking and mud nest making

...by many darting, swooping, ducking and diving happy House Martins.

 

A soporific mountain scene

It's a sleepy place, up in the mountains. Even the cockerel sounds more comic than annoying.

Note the mole hills on the grass with the cow pats

Mole hills are absolutely and completely everywhere, as are singing Chaffinches. During today's search for some decent woodpecker habitat, we wondered whether both aren't planning a world takeover. This picture isn't a particularly good example of the extent of either, but this is where we felt the influence of both.

Sun and snow

I frightened myself half to death this morning. Thought I'd left the trusty travel kettle at the last hotel. Must be addicted to tea or becoming very fond of the kettle. The laptop and vital tea equipment bags are very similar and in semi-sleep mode I could only grapple at a laptop charger. Of course the kettle was in its correct bag.

Whistling kettle with a view

The room kettle doesn't get out much and isn't picturesque, unlike Phil's festival stove and whistling kettle which are learning the basics of Spanish - like me. I was thrilled when the supermarket lady told me they didn't sell bread (in Spanish of course) and it was to be found 'el fin a la izquierda' - thank you teacher Josefina. I followed the bread aroma a long way down a narrow street and into a house (on the left) with a front room bread oven conversion. That was the main picnic ingredient sorted. The bread was hot and I couldn't resist, so had a luscious hunk spread with peanut butter with the above cup of tea - which isn't there any more - marvelling at the snowy peace and quiet of the mountains.

Awesome scenery - and so peaceful

Male Ring Ouzel - same as those on Dartmoor

The Alpine and Red-billed Choughs were out of focus and this mountain blackbird was the best I could do. He actually chirrups rather sweetly, with much more of a warble than Blackbirds. 

We drifted quietly into France 

...except for the scary sat nav woman who broke the silence by announcing 'You crossed the border' in her pompous voice (which I don't know how to change). It was a bit odd finding weatherbeaten signs in French. 

The tour group

Every day something unexpected happens. It might be stumbling across a Praying Mantis and not being able to take a picture because you haven't set the camera properly - and you didn't know what a Praying Mantis was before. Taking several pictures of a Scarce Swallowtail Butterfly and again, missing the opportunity of a brilliant picture. Most days, I have no idea what I will pop on this blog. 
Because I'd mucked up the camera (without realising), I made a movie of the Praying Mantis which would send you to sleep, so that'll have to wait for another time. It's very strange in action, so will be worth the wait. 

A Scarce Swallowtail Butterfly

Headed for the Pyrenees

Passed scenic villages 

Popped into this one for 'dos cafe con leche' and it was eye catching.  

Pretty pots in the coffee village

Patterns and villages

Followed this aquifer for miles

...and was pleased to be released eventually. So much for maps and Spanish country roads.

More villages and patterns

And then... we would have been the only two guests in the Heidi mountain hotel if an English tour group hadn't arrived an hour after us. Well... it was like being in a 'Marigold Hotel' situation but with an essence of birds and wine, which was the focus of their week long trip. Interesting but annoying that everyone spoke English - and they stole our limelight. We should have been 'the ones' (or two actually). 

At dinner, there was the long 'Marigold' table and us at our tiny one - outcasts or special? Special. Fortunately Sylvia is a bit of an attention seeker and she is parked right outside, alongside the two tour mini-buses. We never mentioned her (why would we?) - but they did. 'Were we the ones with 'the vehicle'?' Of course. Super special. 

A windswept tree

That's me! That's what I felt like after spending the day at Laguna de Pitillas, Navarra. The wind was so strong and so cold that I wore everything. I'm not bending over on purpose - I was blown sideways as the picture was taken.

The face-whipping wind

Don't be put off from visiting this lovely lake because there was so much to see and photograph, if you could only pin it down. I took a picture of a white butterfly which had its little leg wrapped around a flower stalk. There were masses of birds: Purple and Grey Heron, Common and Spotted Redshank, Great Crested and Black-necked and Little Grebes, Great Reed Warblers singing like mad and trillions of migrating Sand Martins - which were a devil to photograph.

I've enhanced the colour to make it look more attractive in the wind

A Ladder Snake found a warm place to stretch out

Yesterday's trapped bull running bar - still trapped

Never mind. We're off tomorrow. 

PS We had a brilliant picnic at the lake, provided by the hotel - perfected by our secret supply of Heinz salad cream. Simple pleasures...

Running with the bulls

We somehow navigated ourselves through an impossibly difficult route from Sepulveda in Castilla y Leon, through La Rioja and into the little town of Villafranca in Navarra - next door to France. We followed what can only be described as a plait of autovias, fast undulating (queasy making) red roads, unusually fast yellow roads - ducking and diving under and over railway lines, big rivers and more autovias. 

Our trusty(ish) map is a book and the route took us across four pages which weren't connected. For instance, to follow the route on page 33 the navigator had to go to page 19 and then to 34, and so on. What with the plait, the page turning and the endlessly undulating roads, it wasn't at all surprising to be greeted by a fairground with dodgem cars when we rolled into town.

A slice of today

My camera was ready for action and set to take pictures through the window and the tiny thread heading for the horizon (a continuation of the road) is as good as it gets.

An unidentified (as yet) Treecreeper feeding its family in a tree stump under a motorway bridge

The plait of roads, rivers and railway bridges passes close to Villafranca and we poked about for a bit under the flyover where the autovia leaps across the mighty Rio Aragon. 

The home of the Treecreeper family is at the top of the slit under the horizontal branch of the tree stump in the centre of the picture

How thrilling is that? You never know what you are going to find and where. There was also a chirpy Tree Sparrow singing its head off on the same stump.

Much later we went off to find a much needed cerveza in the square where we sipped them this time last year. The fiesta spirit has pervaded our quiet little town which has hefty bright red fences erected on either side of the main streets in preparation for an imminent 'running with the bulls' event. The downside of all this was that our favourite (only one we know) bar was rendered inaccessible by chained fencing. After we crossed the still being assembled hefty barriers looking for another bar (quite desperate by this time), the final chains and locks were put in place preventing us from getting 'home'. Enforced fiesta(ing) wasn't on my agenda. 

A happy ending - we made it home to Hospederia De Alesves 

...where we sat in the sun and sipped our cervezas.