Spain - Extremadura/Donana
In May of 2007 my wife, myself and our 2 and 4 year old daughters traveled to Spain. We arrived 5/6/2007 and returned to Boston airport on 5/20/2007. We birded six days. We also went to Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Toledo and Madrid with no real birding being done. These cities are fantastic by themselves!
Travel: Iberia air started a new nonstop flight from Boston to Madrid at the good rate of $614 for adults.
Car Rental & Driving: We rented Alamo on line. We didn't rent two children's seats because they seemed expensive on the web. When we got to Madrid, Iberia did not have our two children's seats; it seems that in Boston they didn't treat them like regular luggage and this messed things up. We've travelled a number of times and never had this happen. We spent a while in the airport hoping the seats would show up, but after about 2 1/2 hours we picked up our rent a car. Alamo is taken care of by Nationa/Atesa it turns out. We rented the seats and they were actually not very much. The car we got was a diesel Citroen C5 and we really liked it. Got it on the 7th and returned it at night on the 16th for a total of 480 Euros; this includes the two children's seats. Supposedly Iberia will pay us some type of inconvenience money but we haven't called them yet.
Driving was better than I anticipated. The only difficulties were caused by narrow roads and one way streets. The dirt roads we encountered south of Seville were different than those we are used to in the US and Mexico: rather than bumpy all along the way they would be smooth and then there would be a sizeable hole/ditch to navigate. Our total driving, including the 'culture' part of our trip, was 2300 Km.
Areas Birded: We birded Montfrague National Park, the area between Trujillo and Caceres and then went south to Andalucia to bird Donana National Park. We did see some birds later in our trip.
Lodging:
Trujillo: We stayed about 10 Km south of Trujillo in the Hotel Rural Vina las Torres where we found a nice B&B in a nice very quiet location with a large room: just what we wanted. Breakfast was alright and we paid 279 Euros for 3 nights.
El Rocio: In El Rocio we stayed at Hotel Toruno, which is right on the large lagoon. As we expected, the room was small, but that was alright. We asked for room 223, which, along with a couple other rooms, allows one to look out over the lagoon. You can get a much longer view than standing on the ground. The staff was friendly and a modest breakfast was included. We paid 160 Euros for 2 nights.
Seville: We got into the center of Seville in our rented car and luckily found a delivery person in a small truck who guided us out: the narrowest driving conditions I have ever experienced. We had to park in an underground garage off of a large street about 100 meters from our hotel. We stayed in an apartment in the Hotel & Apartamentos Murillo for two nights for a total of 200 Euros. I would recommend it.
Granada: We wanted to stay close to the Alhambra and wound up staying at Hotel Casa Capitel Nazari which was fairly nice and had a very good breakfast. It's below the hill on which the Alhambra resides. You need to park at an underground lot in the center and you get a discounted parking rate. For two nights we paid 198 Euros.
Madrid: We stayed 4 nights, at 109 Euros per night, at the Maria Elena Palace in Madrid. This is a nice hotel: not too big, nice big rooms, a very good breakfast. I dropped the wife and girls off at the hotel, returned the car to the airport and took the metro back to the hotel. Madrid is a fantastic city in so many ways.
Food: Food in Spain, and we're sure many other west european nations, is expensive compared to US prices, so we didn't do any real fancy dining. Moreover, quite often the sandwiches we bought were extremely simple: two pieces of bread and a piece of meat; nothing bad about this, just that we'd never seen such a thing before. We were a bit surprised at how often one can find hair in their food when they take a close look. This was usually with meat dishes and we presumed the hair was from the animals that were used rather than the cooks. Only one complaint: In El Rocio there is a cafe/restaurant whose name escapes us now: it is on a corner and has a good number of tables with umbrellas in the sand in front of it. The prices were absolutely ridiculous with, for example, an orange fanta soft drink for two euros. Moreover, the principle person working there was far from friendly.
Resources:
Books: I use the only bird guide I have that covers Spain and this is: Hamlyn Guide, Birds of Britain and Europe, by Brunn, Delin and Svensson with illustrations by Singer and Zetterstrom, published in 1992. It's simple, seems fairly complete and has what I consider nice drawings. I will, however, upgrade to a new, more substantial guid next time I go to Europe. For Spain bird area guides I used A Birdwatching Guide to Extremadura by Muddeman, Donde ver aves en Donana by Moreno and Gutierrez and Where to Watch Birds Southern & Western Spain, by Garcia and Paterson.
Trip Reports: I made use of four trip reports, all available from the web, which, when combined, seemed quite comprehensive, in particular when the books I had obtained were taken into account: 1) From www.realbirder.com, Spain-Extremadura and Coto Donana 1st to 11th May 2006, 2) Extremadura and Andalucia April 2005, published on the web and authored by Nigel Voaden, 3) Spain, 8/4-19/4 2001, a report of a trip taken by Bent Jacobsen, Hakon Meyer, Andreas Winnem and Anders Maeland, 4) Archived Trip Reports, April 2006, from Donana Bird Tours, run by John Butler.
Maps: We got the foldout Michelin Spain & Portugal map (no. 734) for the 'big picture' and the Michelin Spain & Portugal Tourist and Motoring Atlas (1:400000 scale). The later also has some detail maps for the larger cities. Muddeman has nice maps for Montfrague and the Trujillo area which were very useful, while Donde ver aves en Donana has a not so useful map and somewhat useful verbal explanations. If you go to Donana the main places near El Rocio, where we spent out first day, are very easy to find. But if you plan to go anywhere away from these, get a map from a visitor center and preferably one marked with which roads are currently the best.
Trip Details:
On May 7 we drove from Madrid to Montfrague. We took the M40 from Barajas Airport to the highway marked for Bajadoz. There were some signs for the National Park as we approached La Bazagona and we got off here. Just upon exiting the highway we stopped to see: bee-eater, crested lark. Driving into and through the park we saw: house sparrow, white stork, magpie, grey heron, red kite, stone chat, yellowhammer, corn bunting, swallow, woodchat shrike, azure-winged magpie. There were about a dozen birders at the Portilla del Tietar and we parked near it and walked up to the viewing spot. It was getting hot by this time of the day. We saw griffon vulture, black vulture, blue rock thrush, house martin, black kite, nightingale. And thanks to some more experienced birders we saw spanish imperial eagle and observed a baby eagle owl at a nest well concealed behind a bush. We next stopped briefly at a picnic area for a breather and saw: crested tit, blue tit. At another turn off, looking across a river to a cliffside we observed a black kite nest which some birders graciously pointed out to us. We drove up the castle drive and stopped for about fifteen minutes where we saw: black redstart, serin, chaffinch. Finally, we made our way a little south of Trujillo to our hotel: Hotel rural vina las torres, where we saw jackdaw just outside the grounds and hoopoe right across the entrance gate! Blackbirds were regular at the hotel also. (27 species)
On May 8 we headed did Muddeman’s sites 10 & 11. We first went from Trujillo to Santa Marta de Magasca and then stopped in Caceres to get some provisions: bread, sausage, cheese and beverages. We then headed up near Monroy to work our way over the rio Almonte and back down near Trujillo, where we spent a little time in the central square. We saw: black kite, magpie, stonechat, white stork, spanish sparrow, spotless starling, southern grey shrike, whinchat, collared dove, great bustard, red-legged partridge, booted eagle, roller, moorhen, hoopoe, raven, red kite, little ringed plover, blue tit, pied wagtail, crag martin, red-rumped swallow, swallow, grey heron, montagu’s harrier, griffon vulture, azure-winged magpie, calandra lark, black-eared wheatear, red-legged partridge, gadwall, mallard, moorhen, lesser kestrel, jackdaw, swift. The spanish sparrows were fairly easy to observe, the great bustard was spotted by scanning out a long distance from the road but we got good looks at him, and the rollers were as Muddeman states, on site 10 road where there are some tall power line poles with nest boxes. We also saw some turtles at rio Almonte. In the evening we heard from the hotel an animal calling that sounded very much like a stone curlew. (35 species). We got 40 liters of gas for 38 euros.
On May 9 we went back to Montfrague and then passed through Belen afterwards. At Arroyo de la Vid in Montfrague we saw: booted eagle, red-rumped swallow, woodchat shrike, stonechat, blue tit, house sparrow, rock bunting. We next went to the Salto del Gitano site to view the Pena Falcon rock formation. There were about a dozen friendly folks here. We came in large part to see the black stork nest visible by looking down from the platform to the rock formation. Here we relaxed in a wonderful atmosphere with the tremendous rock formation and watched as birds of prey soared on the thermals, with a less than common one making it’s way across the sky from time to time. Here we saw: black stork, egyptian vulture, griffon vulture, black vulture, short-toed eagle, black kite, blue rock thrush, rock bunting. We then headed north, up the park, and took a left to go on the ‘not so interesting’ branch of the fork in the road, seeing a pair of bonneli’s eagles cruising slowly above us. We lunched at the restaurant/café of the park camping area near the end of this road and it was quite good food at a very reasonable price. We decided to head back slowly to our hotel, going by Trujillo on the way. We tried to get on the Belen plains road as described in Site 13 of Muddeman, but were never sure we were on it. We went a good ways, 10 or more Kms, down the road, seeing near the end of our travel a large cattle egret, etc., colony. We were hoping to see the great spotted cuckoo, but not to strongly as we knew it was not easy to see. For the second time we ran across someone looking for great bustard with no success, and felt lucky to have seen one. We didn’t see a cuckoo but did see: little grebe, cattle egret, grey heron, white stork, magpie, jackdaw, raven. The road we took was gotten on to by going through Belen and going a little to the right after leaving the town. It seemed the only option, but we couldn’t help but wonder if we were wrong as the buildings didn’t really match those in Muddeman. We stopped for a while in Trujillo, eating some ice cream in the central plaza and went a little past the bull ring, which Muddeman describes, to a park/fishing area where we saw: little ringed plover, common sandpiper, black-winged stilt, pied wagtail. The plover, sandpiper and wagtail were actually seen at a little marsh/swamp area on the other side of the bull ring which had a good deal of garbage in it. (25 species).
In our first three days we had 58 species, 33 of which were new!
On May 10 we headed south to Donana National Park. We stopped at Merida to see the fantastic Roman ruins: an aqueduct, the theater/amphitheater complex and the roman bridge. At the latter we easily saw alpine swifts among the common swifts. We also saw cattle egret, moorhen and white stork while in Merida. We arrived at El Rocio at checked in to Hotel Toruno. We had warning from someone we met at Montfrague that water levels were very high in Donana in general and some typically ‘good’ spots were rather barren. From our hotel balcony we did see: pochard, red-crested pochard, grey heron, whiskered tern, spoonbill, squacco heron, house sparrow, house martin. The whiskered terns were in large numbers and there was a couple of the spoonbills. (13 species)
On May 11 we observed a string of flamingos flying over the lagoon and some a little bittern flying in and out of the reeds below our hotel balcony. We headed off to El Acebuche. The visitor center/gift shop/cafeteria is quite nice. We headed towards the lagoon and did all the blinds to the right and one to the left. While in one of the blinds a nice guy from the UK chatted with us. He said, and I’m grateful for this, that the Valverde center was very birdy, particularly with flamingos and ibis. I had already picked up directions from the visitor center on how to get to Valverde and determined we would include it the next day. The directions change depending on the previous and existing weather, so it pays to get them from the center staff in the form of a nice handout with a map on it. Together with the man from the UK we watched some a couple purple gallinules and he pointed out a ferruginous duck which was a real treat for me. We saw in all: black kite, coot, grey heron, little egret, white stork, blackbird, stonechat, golden oriole, magpie, serin, ferruginous duck, mallard, pochard, little grebe, bee-eater, azure-winged magpie, house sparrow, purple gallinule. There was a shore bird seen from a distance which was probably a common sandpiper as well as turtles. We next went to El Arroyo de La Rocina. It was nice walking around on the boardwalks and we walked all the way to the last hide. Quite a walk but the weather was nice! We saw: moorhen, garden warbler, greenfinch, whiskered tern, house sparrow, tree sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, serin (which looked quite like a siskin), spoonbill, grey heron, little egret, long-tailed tit, pochard, kingfisher, buzzard, marsh harrier, gadwall, wren, reed warbler, savi’s warbler and chough. The savi’s warbler was a treat, allowing for long looks while it sang from some reed-tops. The chough was a complete surprise. I had not been paying attention to black colored birds after seeing some blackbirds and my wife noted a large black bird with the red bill and could see the curve of the bill; must have been a chough. Towards the late afternoon we went to the beach, taking the main road towards the ocean and turning right at the end. We drove some kilometers until we reached a parking area for a public beach on the left. We pushed the strollers up and over the long boardwalk and spend a couple hours relaxing at the beach. There was one shorebird that I could not get too close to, looking like a very dark common sandpiper. A couple groups of shorebirds flew past over the water. A raven was present for a while and at the top of the stairs a person from France was observing some bee-eaters and indicated he was hearing sardinian warblers singing.
On May 12, our last official ‘birding day’, we decided to go to the Jose Antonio Valverde visitor center. We decided this based on the indication by the gentelman at El Acebuche that there were a lot of birds there. Luckily we met him and made this choice, as you’ll see, for the day may have been a washout otherwise. The visitor center is really nice. At the center or in the bushes near the parking lot we saw: black-winged stilt, black kite, red-tailed kite, short-toed eagle, mallard, purple heron, glossy ibis, flamingo, moorhen, coot, little egret, cattle egret, spoonbill, pochard, avocet, spotted flycatcher, spanish sparrow, black tern, grey wagtail. There seemed to be some gulls in the very back just out of id range. We had come to the visitor center as indicated to us on the map from the El Acebuche center, but decided to go back a little different. On exiting the parking lot we took a hard right, having come in from the left. After some time of passing swampy/marshy areas we came to a large pond where we saw: curlew sandpiper, dunlin, golden plover, little ringed plover & avocet black-winged stilt.
After the visitor center we went to Coria del Rio and took a small ferry across the Guadalquivir. It took a while to find the entrance to the ferry and we had to ask someone. We then made our way down to the area between Chapatales and Pinzon. From the book Donde Ver Aves En Donana, where this area is called El Brazo Del Este II, we thought there would be some good birding here. In fact there was little water, with almost all the rice fields quite dry. We saw little and nothing new. However, a couple of times we saw what looked like terns, with strong black and white markings, above fields and couldn’t i.d. them; they were not stilts. So ended our birding, with a sour note, but everything before very nice!
Alhambra birds and odds and ends: While in Granada we couldn’t help but notice the birds around the Alhambra. The gardens are wonderful and I’m sure there were many more birds than what we saw in our short time looking: blackcap, sardinian warbler, robin, swifts.
In front of our hotel near Trujillo was some water with some bathing birds, one of which may have been a cirl bunting. In the El Rocio area we saw a sardinian warbler, probably at La Rocina. We also saw some night herons, probably near the Valverde center. Also south of Seville we saw some displaying sky larks. Rock doves were definitely seen.
100 SPECIES, 49 NEW – Lifers in bold, first time in Europe in italics.
| Podicipedidae | ||
| Tachybaptus ruficollis | little grebe | |
| Ardeidae | ||
| Ixobrychus minutus | little bittern | |
| Egretta garzetta | little egret | |
| Ardeola ralloides | squacco heron | |
Bubulcus ibis | cattle egret | |
Ardea cinerea | grey heron | |
Ardea purpurea | purple heron | |
Nycticorax nycticorax | night heron | |
Ciconiidae | ||
Ciconia ciconia | white stork | |
Ciconia nigra | black stork | |
Threskiornithidae | ||
Plegadus falcinellus | glossy ibis | |
Platalea leucorodia | spoonbill | |
Phoenicopteridae | ||
Phoenicopterus ruber | flamingo | |
Anatidae | ||
Anas platyrynchos | mallard | |
Anas strepera | gadwall | |
Netta rufina | red-crested pochard | |
Aythya ferina | pochard | |
Aythya nyroca | ferruginous duck | |
Cathartidae | ||
Neophron percnopterus | egyptian vulture | |
Gyps fulvus | griffon vulture | |
Aegypius monachus | black vulture | |
Accipitridae | ||
Aquila heliaca | spanish imperial eagle | |
Hieraaetus fasciatus | bonneli's eagle | |
Hieraaetus pennatus | booted eagle | |
Circaetus gallicus | short-toed eagle | |
buteo buteo | buzzard | |
Milvus milvus | red kite | |
Milvus migrans | black kite | |
Circus aeruginosus | marsh harrier | |
Circus pygargus | montagu's harrier | |
Falconidae | ||
Falco naumanni | lesser kestrel | |
Phasianidae | ||
Alectoris rufa | red-legged partridge | |
Otitidae | ||
Otis tarda | great bustard | |
Rallidae | ||
Porphyrio porphyrio | purple gallinule | |
Gallinula chloropus | moorhen | |
Fulica atra | coot | |
Charadriidae | ||
Charadrius dubius | little ringed plover | |
Pluvialis apricaria | golden plover | |
Scolopacidae | ||
Calidris ferruginea | curlew sandpiper | |
Calidris alpina | dunlin | |
Actitis hypoleucos | common sandpiper | |
Recurvirostridae | ||
Recurvirostra avosetta | avocet | |
Himantopus himantopus | black-winged stilt | |
Sternidae | ||
Chlidonias niger | black tern | |
Chlidonias hybridus | whiskered tern | |
Columbiformes | ||
Columbia livia | rock dove | |
Streptopelia decaocto | collared dove | |
Strigidae | ||
Bubo bubo | eagle owl | |
Apodidae | ||
Apus apus | swift | |
Apus melba | alpine swift | |
Alcedinidae | ||
Alcedo atthis | kingfisher | |
Meropidae | ||
Merops apiaster | bee-eater | |
Coraciidae | ||
Coracias garrulus | roller | |
Upupidae | ||
Upupa epops | hoopoe | |
Alaudidae | ||
Melanocorypha calandra | calandra lark | |
Galerida cristata | crested lark | |
Alauda arvensis | skylark | |
Hirundinidae | ||
Ptyonoprogne rupestris | crag martin | |
Hirundo rustica | swallow | |
Hirundo daurica | red-rumped swallow | |
Delichon urbica | house martin | |
Motacillidae | ||
Motacilla cinerea | grey wagtail | |
Motacilla alba yarrelli | pied wagtail | |
Laniidae | ||
Lanius senator | woodchat shrike | |
Lanius excubitor | southern grey shrike | |
Oriolidae | ||
Oriolus oriolus | golden oriole | |
Sturnidae | ||
Sturnus unicolor | spotless starling | |
Corvidae | ||
Cyanopica cyana | azure-winged magpie | |
Pica pica | magpie | |
Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax | chough | |
Corvus monedula | jackdaw | |
Corvus corax | raven | |
Troglodytidae | ||
Troglodytes troglodytes | wren | |
Sylviidae | ||
Locustella luscinioides | savi’s warbler | |
Acrocephalus scirpaceus | reed warbler | |
Sylvia borin | garden warbler | |
Sylvia atricapilla | blackcap | |
Sylvia melanocephala | sardinian warbler | |
Muscicapidae | ||
Muscicapa striata | spotted flycatcher | |
Turdidae | ||
Oenanthe hispanica | black-eared wheatear | |
Saxicola rubetra | whinchat | |
Saxicola torquata | stonechat | |
Monticola solitarius | blue rock thrush | |
Phoenicurus ochruros | black redstart | |
Erithacus rubecula | robin | |
Luscinia megarhynchos | nightingale | |
Turdus merula | blackbird | |
Paridae | ||
Parus cristatus | crested tit | |
Parus caeruleus | blue tit | |
Aegithalidae | ||
Aegithalos caudatus | long-tailed tit | |
Passeridae | ||
Passer domesticus | house sparrow | |
Passer hispaniolensis | spanish sparrow | |
Passer montanus | tree sparrow | |
Fringillidae | ||
Fringilla coelebs | chaffinch | |
Serinus serinus | serin | |
Carduelis chloris | green finch | |
Carduelis carduelis | goldfinch | |
Emberizidae | ||
Miliaria calandra | corn bunting | |
Emberiza cia | rock bunting | |
Emberiza citrinella | yellowhammer |