15 Dec 2008

8th Dec 1988 - Pyrenees

It is a bank holiday in Spain, so we go back into France for petrol and food. We take a minor road through the edge of the Pyrenees, wind­ing and steep in places, but the van copes easily ‑ we have not driven it on such steep slopes before.

We pull onto a wide verge which overlooks one end of a valley with trees and farmland on the lower slopes and open ground higher up. Within a few minutes there is a sparrowhawk soaring in front of us, mobbed by crows and smaller passe­rines. Then there is a red kite swinging back and forth along the valley, seeming to bounce on the air currents.

Next a group of huge birds appear along the ridge behind the kite. They have wings like barn doors, primaries extended and upturned, small pale heads and small fanned tails. It takes us a few minutes to comprehend in the size of these birds, they are griffon vultures with a 3 metre wingspan. More appear after them, often below the level of the ridge and flapping heavily. The sun shines brightly from behind us, allowing us to see their colour and markings ‑ very dark flight feathers and brown coverts on top, paler brown coverts below often with a yellow‑cream line on the median coverts, and a pale brown body. They soar and circle, coming towards us but gaining height so not really getting close.

There are seven in all, then four come in high from the left, then more in ones and twos until there are eighteen. They continue to soar, now on wings almost motionless and with tails acting as rudders, then drift off over the ridge to our left. They return several times, mostly as a large group with one or two stragglers, giv­ing us ample opportunity to study and photograph them.

There are several red kites ‑ maximum three at once - searching the ground from a much lower view­point. Buzzards usually announce their arri­val with a loud mewing. A kestrel flies slowly along the ridge then hovers briefly before plung­ing on some unsus­pecting prey. Jim sees a pere­grine in the same area. Small birds in the bushes and trees around us are the usual farmland spec­ies. But is the vultures that dominate the scene.

On the high pastures there are many stooks of dried bracken, it having been cut and dried on the hills for use as winter bedding for livestock. This practice is essential to the traditional economy, although in some areas the bracken is being ploughed up and replaced with grass to pro­vide all year grazing for cattle.

First thing this morning there was some mist about but while we stopped to watch the raptors it was sunny and still ‑ quite warm in fact. However small cotton wool clouds blowing over the ridges show just how windy it is on the high tops. I am vaguely surprised that there isn't snow on the peaks ‑ 900m or more, and I certainly didn't expect to see leaves on the trees still ‑ mostly oaks in autumn dress. The need for petrol, food and a camp-site send us down to the coast in the mid‑afternoon, but we can see clouds building up, quite dark ones in the late afternoon, so it probably would not be a good idea to stay up there for too much longer.

Birds around the campsite include blackcaps, wrens, thrushes, wagtails, tree sparrows, etc. A nearby field of sweetcorn is inhabited by a swarm of several hundred house sparrows which fly over the campsite when alarmed; a number of chaffinches on the far side take to the line of trees when appropriate and a few robins vigorously defend their terri­tories along a hedge.

No comments: