14th Dec 1988 - Cuevas de Covolanas

Heading back towards the coast, we stop at the Cuevas de Covalanas again. About twenty or thirty red‑billed choughs gather on the rocks above us before going off to their roost. Jim scans the rocks for smaller birds and discovers half a dozen crag martins hawking insects along the cliff top. This species is typically found feeding just below the tops of cliffs, where they catch insects carried up on air currents as well as those they disturb by flying close to the cliff face, and even picking insects directly off the rock as they fly past. They glide most of the time, occasionally giving a little shake, perhaps as they manoeuvre to catch a nearby insect.

There were some weird noises at dawn, the loudest being chough possibly calling from one of the limestone caves which acts as an echo cham­ber. Then come some loud hoots which I thought at first were ravens, but am surprised to discover the callers are crows. Some chacking calls turn out to be black redstarts being chased off by the local robin.

A track cut into the cliff‑side leads up to a cave which has been bricked up but has two locked doors. A small flock of birds flies overhead and lands on the cliff even higher up. Through the binoculars they look dumpy grey and rufous birds but with the telescope we see enough detail to confirm that they are alpine accentors, adults with speckled chins and first winter birds in plainer plumage. They do not stay long, perhaps they are just passing through for although alpine accentors sometimes move below 1800 metres for the winter, they do not normally utilise the kind of precip­itous or broken terrain that characterised this area.

In fact, coming across many species here seemed to be a matter of luck. Yesterday's crag martins were not seen again, the black redstarts were gone when we descended the track, and groups of siskins and linnets also came and went.

Halfway back down the track a vole sits out in the open eating grass. It does not seem to notice our approach, perhaps the large tick on its neck is interfering with its vision. I move round for a better look but it becomes alarmed and scuttles into the rocks. This vole is quite a dark colour, almost like a bank vole, however its very short tail and uniform colour on the back and sides convinced me that it is actu­ally a field vole.

A red squirrel clambers up a wall across a ravine. It stops in a crevice for a while ‑ until we wonder if we are just looking at squi­rrel-shaped vegetation ‑ then it disappears.