In early December 2024 I flew to Madrid for the weekend. This was a repeat trip to an area I have been to before, the hills to east of Madrid near Guadalajara and the plains to the south, near Toledo. Getting to Spain is so ridiculously cheap and the birding (and weather) so much better than the UK that it is an easy decision for a short winter trip. This time I took Mick with me as he was keen to try for Wallcreeper and Bonelli's Eagle, both species I had seen last time. We flew on Friday afternoon, arriving too late for any birding, and drove east to the small town of Sacedon which was close to the main area I wanted to go birding the following morning. This is the gorge to the west of the Embalse de Entrepenas, and where I'd seen both of the birds above last time. Wintering Wallcreeper hadn't been reported this year, but Bonelli's Eagle is still regular in the area.
We awoke to heavy fog! Heavy enough to have a nice coffee and breakfast in a local cafe knowing we wouldn't be missing anything. Sure enough once we got there it was still heavy enough that you couldn't see across the gorge. This also made it very cold and rather miserable, not quite what I had had in mind! We gave it a go anyway, walking down the track from the dam to the bridge, a gentle slope with the gorge on your right. There was plenty of bird activity despite the murky weather, with Rock Bunting, Coal Tit and Crested Tit in the pines around the car park at the top end, and Crag Martins leaving roost on the cliff above and heading down the river. We found Firecrest, Nuthatch and Short-toed Treecreeper as we descended, and near the bridge as the landscape widened out I finally ticked Dunnock for Spain! There were Cetti's Warblers down here as well, a Grey Wagtail, and a Kingfisher flew up the river. We walked back up, were we imagining it or was the mist perhaps slightly thinner? It must have lifted a little as we were able to see Chough and our first Griffon Vulture. Of Wallcreeper there was no sign, and talking to a couple of local birders they confirmed that the regular wintering bird had not returned. So much for that plan! Last time it had been pure fluke, I had booked the trip without knowing about the bird, and few weeks or so before I travelled I had scanned eBird and been amazed to see this pin very close to where I had been going anyway. Oh well.
By now it was midday and time to try a new spot. We bought some provisions to make sandwiches in a local town and then drove the short distance to the Embalse de Buendia and walked down to the shore, a fair old hike of about a mile. Here we realised that not having a scope was really going to hold us back, the reservoir was enormous and the waterfowl mere dots! I used the camera to zoom in on various of these specks and in this way was able to positively identifty Cormorant, Grey Heron, Great Crested Grebe, Mallard and Gadwall, but it was pretty hopeless and rather unsatisfactory. We put down a particularly bright Chiffchaff as Iberian and were later shot down by the local eBird reviewer, fair enough really, it hadn't made a sound. Other than that we recorded a few Crested Lark, a pair of Black Redstart, a Raven and Common Sandpiper. In the fields and hedges either side of the track were large numbers of Finches and Corn Buntings. At a speculative roadside stop a short distance away we added what turned out to be a flock of Spotless Starling and some Sardinian Warblers.
Mid afternoon we arrived at Hoz Angosta, a narrow gorge above the Embalse de Entrepenas. This had seemed a very productive eBird spot but we couldn't replicate the success of previous birders. Of note was a huge kettle of Griffon Vultures, and within this a single Bonelli's Eagle for a short while which we confirmed with photographs. We moved on to a further spot, the Arroyo del Canizar, but this was equally unproductive. Sometimes birding is just like this, the time of day or the particular weather conditions just don't work. It hadn't been a bad day, far from it, but it had felt like hard work for the 56 species we had seen. We needed a new plan.
That plan was to drive to totally different area and to go birding somewhere else. We didn't need to go especially far, I think it was under two hours, heading south to the plains southeast of Toledo near Alcazar de San Juan. We found a cheap hotel in Miguel Esteban close to the first pin, a series of shallow lakes that had a good list of birds.
The following morning we went directly there, a matter of minutes east of the town. Whilst you cannot get into the lakes there are series of viewing portals (of terrible design!) that allow you to look in, just about. As expected our trip list began to increase rapidly, with Shoveler, Water Rail, Moorhen, Greater Flamingo, Marsh Harrier, and my top Spanish target, Wigeon!
We headed south to the Laguna de Salicor. Once again a scope would have been ideal, but we managed to positively identify Pintail, Shelduck, Redshank and Lapwing from the crest on the north side, and along this track was a flock of Great Bustard in a rocky field. Once on the southern and eastern edges we were able to get a lot closer to the water and found a small group of Little Stint, another Spanish tick. Better still we jammed in on a flock of Pin-tailed Sandgrouse in a field, and in trying to get a better view of these found a Little Bustard in the same place entirely by accident. Add in a covy of Red-legged Partridge and this was clearly a top spot for gamebirds. Red Kite were especially common in this area, we had a brief Spanish Eagle and some Common Buzzards, and Larks were all around - Crested, Calandra and Skylark. Oh, and the small matter of hundreds of Common Crane flying overhead! The Spanish steppes are simply wonderful.
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| Pin-tailed Sandgrouse |
Outside the town of Alcazar de San Juan lie the Laguna de la Veguilla and the Laguna del Camino de Villafranca. The latter is vast but is quite dry, the former has more water and thus more wildfowl. Huge numbers of Shoveler were present with perhaps 75 White-headed Duck and 50 Pochard. We couldn't find the rumoured Ferruginous Duck buth there were plenty of places it could have been hiding. Also here were eight Black-necked Grebe, double figures of Little Grebe, and five Marsh Harrier. The best place to look from here is the hide on the east side, which is reached either by foot from the south or by car from the north. At the much larger Laguna slightly north were hundred of Gulls, 120 Dunlin, 80 Little Stint, 100+ White Stork, a Water Pipit and a small number of Ruff.
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| Common Crane |
Heading north we stopped to look at the Laguna Grande de Villafranca de los Caballeros. The main lagoon had hundreds of Coot but little else, but from a hide on an island at the north end reached via a short boardwalk we found a small flock of Red-Crested Pochard and a Great White Egret. Further on, at the Laguna de Tirez, the dominant species was Common Crane, with flocks of hundreds all over the place. Also here were a small number of Kentish Plover, a pair of Hoopoe, Iberian Grey Shrike and three Kestrel.
All of these lagoons were very close to each other, we were still some distance from Toledo let alone nothern Madrid where Barajas is located. We needed to be there by 4pm and so approaching half one we needed to make some ground. If we made good time there might be an opportunity to get a final birding session in, even with Mick's crazy notion that you need to get to an airport at least four days before a flight! So it was that we found ourselves at the Parque Forestal Valdebebas near Barajas. It was quite hard to find the way in, but I managed it eventually and in doing so added Iberian Green Woodpecker to the trip list. Mick spent five minutes taking rubbish pics of Monk Parakeet and then went and sat in the car itching to leave. Once I returned 20 minutes later I shredded his already mangled nerves by driving in circles around Barajas trying to find the car rental return, which I think I managed on about the third attempt. We just about made the flight with only two hours to spare....
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| Monk Parakeet |
In total we saw 97 species. Had our time in the mountains gone better we would have cleared 100 but you cannot have it all your own way. Spain is fabulous for birding. The sites we visited were so easily accessible and not very far away from major cities, yet we saw virtually nobody all weekend. This is the way I like it. That there were Bustards, Cranes, Harriers, Larks and Wildfowl was simply an added bonus.
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