AT Monfrague National Park, in Extremadura in western Spain, watching the birdwatchers was as interesting as watching the birds.
They came in all shapes and sizes, ages and nationalities. They ranged from the lean and tick-hungry twitchers, with floppy hats, camouflage trousers, eagle eyes and large telescopes, to the corpulent, whom one was heartened to meet on demanding mountain paths, confirming that nature is the great entertainer.
They were a companionable lot, willing to share their information — and their telescopes. A pair of griffon vultures or black storks nesting in crevices on the cliffs above the majestic river Tagus offers anybody nearby the opportunity of viewing them at close quarters.
Sometimes, the vultures have chicks in the nest. The chick of the huge griffon vultures seems cuddly close-up. Covered in creamy-white fluff, they often stand with their as-yet-featherless wings held wide, as do cormorants, and half-walk, half-stumble about the shaded nesting ‘cave’ like cartoon creations. Fledglings, including those of vultures and eagles, are endearingly called ‘pollos’ in Spanish, which normally means ‘chicken’, as in ‘pollo asado’, meaning roast chicken. I said this to a Spanish birdwatcher but he didn’t see the joke.
However, the birders are sociable and ready to talk even to those who, like myself, do not ‘twitch’. In accented English, Swedes, Germans, Flems and Walloons, their eyes shining with excitement, are willing to talk half the day away if one will listen.
Meanwhile, the background sounds are of cuckoos calling from every direction, stopping only in the evenings when hoopoes take over, birds with a somewhat similar call.
Monfrague is renowned for its populations of vultures — black, Griffon and Egyptian — and eagles — golden, imperial, Bonelli, short-toed and so on. There are also harriers, Montagu’s, marsh and hen.
Yesterday, I saw the latter species for the second time in my life. In my early teens, walking through a bed of bulrushes on the banks of the Suir in Tipperary (it must have been summer, for the ground was dry) I surprised one in a clearing. It rose, almost from under my feet, a magnificent bird which, although I had no idea of what it was or how rare it was, impressed me so deeply with its size and beauty that I have never forgotten it. I now know it was the female, because it was lovat grey.
I have been very fortunate with the weather. At home, as I drove to the airport, the temperature was 18 degrees and west Cork was drenched in sunshine, with the gorse in golden flower. I arrived in Lisbon to deluges and, although I had intended to explore the Tagus region of Portugal, I fled to Spain where, despite an uncertain forecast, I was greeted by the sun.
I believe I will visit Monfrague and Extremadura again — it truly is unique in the richness of its natural history. As far as the eye can see from the high perches of the sierra, within and without the national park, the dehesa stretches away, rolling, unfenced plains of cork trees carpeted in wild flowers, especially a variety like marigold daisies, no brighter than our gorse but spilling like egg-yolk yellow paint over the land. In the mountains too, bushes bloom in gorgeous white flowers, and lavender is everywhere, on the plains and on the road verges. Black fighting bulls, or bulls destined to fight, graze knee-deep in marigolds and lavender, oblivious of their fate — they will be goaded into taking action against their tormentors as a result of fear and disorientation. I understand how deeply ingrained is the tradition, its symbolism of man fighting for his life and conquering the forces of the earth, but I cannot watch bullfights on television, let alone in real life.
Traditions are unreconstructed and old-fashioned here. A house cricket sings somewhere behind the counter of the bar down the village. I thought the sound was a malfunction on the coffee machine.
Meanwhile, messages from home tell me that our adopted heron has stretched his wings and flown further, to the extension roof, but returned again. He stands bedraggled on the balcony rail, in the rain. He bathes in a baby bath and, before I left, caught a fish eight inches long and swallowed it with little difficulty.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, May 09, 2011
