From the Heights: Vultures, Deer, and Remembering Bill

We’re back in Extremadura, Spain, because vultures and deer. Big birds like griffon vultures were easier to capture than the little birds. Do click on these; they're quite nice if you can see them at size.

I loved the griffons. We watched them for much of the day. This one is building its nest in a likely cranny.

This one may have been feeding on a bloody carcass, as its head was stained red. I wondered how so many huge vultures found enough to eat. I understand there are feeding stations where cattle are laid out for them. Knowing how vultures are suffering and declining worldwide, it’s comforting to see them being subsidized here in Extremadura.

I was grateful to see so many griffon vultures sailing by with comfortably full crops and bloodied heads.

Phoebe, Liam and I climbed to the top of a tower to see the countryside. We did a lot of that, climbing cathedral towers and castle towers, always looking for the eagle's vantage point. 

Ah my beautiful babies. How I reveled in being with them for two weeks. We never got sick of each other. That alone makes my heart sing. To see their enduring love for each other...I can paint and write for the rest of my life, but these two and that love they share is the most beautiful thing I've somehow, inexplicably produced. Had a lot of help from their big sweet crazy dad.

He would have loved showing us Extremadura. We laughed about how goal-oriented he'd have been, searching for the golden eagle, the gigantic black vulture that we somehow spotted the second we entered the park. We looked, too, but we didn't find eagles, and that was OK with us. It wouldn't have been OK with him! He was a goaly guy.

They’re somewhere out there, and that was enough for us. We didn’t have to go chasing over hill and dale to find one. We felt him with us. How could he be anywhere else? If you could see him at 20...he looked an awful lot like this beautiful boy.

You'd have to love wind to live here. Wind sculpted our hair every second.

Me, lugging all necessary optics, all the time, up hill and down dale. 

I was thoroughly encumbered. Once in awhile I'd give Liam my camera to carry, and think how lovely it would be to have a personal porter.

Gliding down, flaps lowered...I imagined my great wings carrying me like a hang-glider, my legs dangling down.

It looks like such fun to dip and dive over this landscape, to ride on the wind instead of standing around fighting it.

And then we rest...

Some of the vultures were carrying twigs and greenery for their nests, before Christmas! Seeing such a majestic and mysterious bird carrying a little sprig of greenery moved me. You could see its goal, there in its bill. It had a thought in its mind and was carrying it out.

After having seen the stag swim the river, we were thrilled to see an Iberian hind and her fawns feeding amongst scattered boulders on a hillside. This is Cervus elaphus hispanicus, the Iberian red deer.

These creatures are much larger and longer legged and lankier than our whitetail; they're very much like the Scottish red deer, which is built more on an elkish body plan. Both European red deer and American elk are in the genus Cervus. Interestingly, Cervus is a primarily Eurasian genus, and our wapiti is the only representative in North America, and certainly the largest of any Cervus worldwide. Our elk are just hyooooge compared to Iberian deer, but this is still a whole lot of animal!

I was most delighted with this shot of three running amongst the rocks; the way they're in focus but the rocks aren't. Please click on it! It looks like a diorama if you embiggen it.

That evening, an Iberian stag cut right in front of our car, and Liam grabbed the moment. December 21, the Winter Solstice, was a charmed day with my sweet family, and it wasn't over yet!

           

This post is a little Valentine to my Liam and Phoebe. Your mama is very far away at the moment, but I hope you can feel my love hurtling on clumsy wings through an Ecuadorean rainstorm, up over the Andes, over the Gulf of Mexico, up through the Appalachian chain, and dropping down into Morgantown. Then it’s picking up again, crossing the winter Atlantic, and zeroing in on a certain girl in mainland Spain right now. You can close the windows and bar the doors, but it’s coming in.

Living Gargoyles

Despite the allure of sunny Sanibel and Key West, from whence I just returned, I am doggedly returning to late December in Spain, specifically Monfragüe National Park in Extremadura. 

I may have to take a Key Deer break in here somewhere, but for now, we're gonna look at griffons.

Griffon vultures. Enormous fabulous legendary Old World vultures that somehow manage to nest and thrive in this rugged and forbidding place. 

This is one of their strongholds for roosting and nesting. Spain, in fact, holds Europe's largest single colony of griffon vultures, in Hoces del Rio Duratón National Park, in the province of Segovia. Get this: From a low of just a few thousand around 1980, there are now more than 25,000 griffons plying the air in Spain. And they're increasing in Italy, having been shot out. People are beginning to wake up, even across the Mediterranean, that you don't just willy-nilly shoot everything that flies. Oh, it's so good to hear good news about vultures. However their populations are always at threat. Apparently a ruling that barred leaving cow carcasses out (for fear of transmitting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) really bit into the Pyrenees griffon populations, and they turned to attacking young and weak living animals, something they normally eschew. 

And another tidbit (sorry) from Wikipedia: In May 2013, a 52-year-old woman who was hiking in the Pyrenees and had fallen off a cliff to her death was eaten by griffon vultures before rescue workers were able to recover her body, leaving only her clothes and a few of her bones. Due to her being the first human to be documented being eaten by griffon vultures, the story brought worldwide attention to the griffon vulture problems in Southern Europe. 

Imagine!! The cleanup crew takes care of her. All of which makes me think about my promise to my kids not to leave myself out for the turkey vultures. Sigh. I won't, I won't. But a girl can dream. 

We watched the great birds cruising around the oak forests known as dehesa. 

The sediment-filled river roiled below the great rock, and a griffon dropped down to perch near its tossing waves. 

It was such a rare privilege to be able to stand on an overlook and look down on a bird whose back one generally never gets to see. It reminded me of Andrew Wyeth's excellent painting of a turkey vulture and the landscape it surveys, from above. 

Some passed at eye level. 

To look into the cool hard yellow eye of a griffon is a fine, fine thing.

Please click on these. You'll see the griffon's great foot coming up to scratch its head!

Thos impossibly long secondaries! The great sails that hold this massive bird aloft! Oh, I can smell those feathers!

Looking more closely at the mountain, we could see it finely crenulated by the silhouettes of vultures.
Use "crenulated" in a sentence today! (I didn't have time to get my pie crust crenulated, dear. You'll have to eat it smooth.)

For a closer look, here they are, wings spread. They can't be sunning. It wasn't sunny in Extremadura. Or Madrid. Or Trujillo. Or anywhere, until we got to La Gomera. Whew. Brr. 

Phoebe, Liam and I were hanging out, watching vultures and other fascinating wildlife. We instinctively knew that it doesn't get any better than this, so we stayed there for a couple of hours at least, wind and cold and all. 

There was a quiet birdwatcher in the parking area with his scope set up pointing up toward a nearby stack. He kind of watched us for an hour or so, and must have decided we were OK, because he motioned for us to come look through his scope. Well I'll be danged. There was a griffon there, and it was tending a nest! In late December! Holy crow!

I had lugged my scope and tripod to Spain. But I  had zero idea there was a griffon nest right next to us. O bless you, Belgian birder who now lives in Extremadura!! I swung my scope over to the nearby nest, and set up my digiscoping rig with the old iPhone 6. 

 I really fought with myself over whether to bring the scope at all, because I knew the kids and I would be traipsing through pueblos and walled cities and Roman ruins, too, not just birding. And the extra weight was a thing.  Had I known what I now know about birding in the dead of winter in Extremadura, I would never have brought it. Except. The ONE time I got it set up on a cooperative bird, this happened. 

I was content watching the wind ruffle the piano-key like feathers of the sitting vulture. And then its mate dropped in.

I do not know what those big round doo-dads are on the birds' upper breast, but I like them a lot. They're decorative, if not somewhat sexy.

Bring the scope. It's always going to be worth it. 

                

Churches and Birds--So Much to Love

As tourists, it's hard for us to go inside the buildings we so admire from the outside. We are outside people. 

But we ducked into a few cathedrals on our pilgrimage to Spain, and were richly rewarded. 

Cold, drafty, echoey and awe-inspiring,  Santa Maria Mayor, Trujillo's great cathedral, with original paintings stacked up as high as you could see. It was likely built atop a mosque around the 13th century, which in turn had been built atop a Visigoth temple (5th-8th century).  My head is spinning, how's yours? It's that antiquity thing...I have no way to comprehend it. 

The ribbed vault was added in the 16th century, so I'm guessing the paintings are from the 1500's, too.

The paintings are by Fernando Gallego, and they're set in incredibly ornate gilded wood frames. I can't even imagine how this stuff survives the centuries without burning down, but it does, and that's just one thing to be grateful for. The level and meticulousness of curation of these treasures is staggering. It was this cathedral whose tower we climbed in the previous post. Our Air BnB host, Carlos, works at the cathedral, and it was he who heard our voices in the empty street, stuck his head out its great wooden doors, and told us to come in and take a look at the cathedral, on the house! 

We climbed the tower, as chronicled in the previous post, and wandered little roads on the outskirts of the village.

Evening came too soon, and the Christmas lights illuminated the narrow streets, so beautifully cobbled and shining with rain. 

We peeked in the windows of a museum, where there were myriad old tools and vessels. Who even knows how old they are? Recalibrating...

Spain does nativities up right. We saw some really beautiful nativities, including depictions of the entire town of Bethlehem and its outskirts. Setting these dioramas up in churches seems to be a holiday thing, and people were bringing their kids to see them. 

This scene of Bethlehem covered probably the size of a couple pool tables. It was amazing. 

I'm cheating a bit--this one was in the walled city of Caceres.  But you get the idea. Fabulous. The figures were maybe 7" tall.

Having steeped ourselves in the true meaning of Christmas, we did a little frippery around the edges.

This Trujillo bakery, family owned since 1939 (antiquity I can get behind), was the bomb-diggity. We made a little box of goodies to take back to the apartment. Yum! It was so nice to have homemade stuff when we were so far from home. Cookies. That's the thing when you're traveling!

We found a bulk-food store with the most beautiful teas and beans. We bought some exotic rooibos which I am enjoying right now.

Oh these BEANS!! Grown in Asturias, a province (state?) Phoebe has recently visited. That hospital-green color!! I can't stand it. It's too beautiful. My bathroom is painted this shade, only darker. I may borrow this color for another room.

I suspect this "espagueti" (these espaguetis?) has (have)  been colored with squid ink. Can't imagine what else they'd use. I understand that squid ink can stain your teeth and turn your poop black. It's got a rich briny flavor. I'd like to try it! Always up for an experiment, especially one that requires Science Chimpy follow-up.

My kind of shop. Textures and colors and photo ops galore!

The next morning, we headed to Monfragüe National Park, about a half hour from Trujillo. On the outskirts of town, we spotted a colorful flock of Eurasian goldfinches, a bird I had been dying to get a look at. Well, this was all the look we got. They were in constant motion and spooky as hell. We chased them until we realized we were never going to see them sitting still. If you click on the photo you'll see one's red face mask in the lower right corner. I was so hoping for a good shot of one.  On to the park!

We hadn't gotten far when we spotted an enormous bird circling alone in the leaden sky. I am so thankful we jumped out of the car and gave it a really good look. 

Try as I might, I couldn't pick up any color on the head or body other than black. The wedge-shaped tail seemed like a good mark, as did the perfectly flat wing profile. 

Of course, my field guide was inaccessible. I was talking a mile a minute to myself, winging the ID.

"Kids, I do believe this is our first black vulture." (Not in the least the same thing as our New World black vulture Coragyps atratus, the Eurasian black vulture Aegypius monachus is Europe's largest raptorial bird. Its range in Europe is virtually limited to Extremadura in Spain, with a couple of Mediterranean sites. Then it occurs much farther east. It is rare, very rare, dwindled in Europe to perhaps 1,000 pairs, all of them in Extremadura. They don't nest until they're 6, if that tells you anything. Black vultures do life slowly. This would be the only one we would see. Bird every bird. 

What an honor, what a privilege to see a black vulture, especially on such a crummy day for soaring! We quickly learned to look hard at every single bird we saw, because birds were scarce and each one was going to be a lifer for all of us.

Here are those famous Iberian hogs, grazing and looking for acorns beneath cork oaks. And to the left are a couple of cranes. Europe got there first, so they named their crane Crane. No modifier. Just Crane. Grus grus. 
To our disappointment, the cranes were terribly wary and began walking off as soon as our car stopped. This was a theme throughout our Spanish visit. The birds of Extremadura operate on an entirely different approachability scale than do the birds of the New World.
I was glad I brought my scope, for what fleeting looks we got at the cranes. I suspected that these birds, from cranes down to the tiniest songbirds, have been hunted, hunted long and hunted hard, to behave the way they do. The Mediterranean flight corridor is the cruelest of all. People, especially in Malta and Gozo, are still shooting, netting and trapping wild birds to eat, and they should have stopped that horrible nonsense centuries ago. Yet their government supports it, with a "legal limit" of 16,000 rare and protected migratory birds to be killed every year. It's absolutely hideous. You can learn more and help stop it with BirdLife Malta here. 

Perhaps the most common raptor we observed was the gloriously beautiful red kite. Again, it was very difficult to get close enough to get a decent shot, but every once in awhile one would pop up over our car and I'd fire quickly out the window.

One of the famous black fighting bulls for which Extremadura is known. Such a classic outline. We saw some, but not as many as I'd been led to expect. Most of the cattle we saw were cream-colored or brown, and seemed to be raised for meat.

If you look closely, you'll see some griffon vultures sailing over the cork-oak dotted landscape. They are fed on cow carcasses at certain places, which certainly helps keep them healthy, and around.

It was griffon vultures who gave us our biggest birding thrill, after the lone black vulture. At last, a bird that didn't seem to mind being looked at. I don't know what immunity from persecution griffons enjoy, but they were tolerant of my camera and our admiring eyes, and for that I'm grateful. What cool birds. Huge birds. Fairy-tale birds. Vultures have taken an enormous hit, from habitat loss; from poisoning in India (eating cow carcasses contaminated with the arthritis painkiller Diclofenac); and poisoning and shooting in Africa (poachers kill them so they don't betray the location of carcasses). I'm so glad these beautiful, majestic vultures seem to be thriving in Monfragüe National Park. More on them next post!