Tag: travel

The Knowledge …

And that wraps up my Spanish sojourn.

I only scratched the surface. In Extremadura the pseudo steppe country around Trujillo turned up such delights as Great and Little Bustards, Stone Curlew and the Great Spotted Cuckoo. Monfrague was gorgeous and Vulture heaven. Villuercas delivered some very nice birds of prey. The countryside in Extremadura was awash with wild flowers and in the towns history dripped from every stone.

It was the perfect time to visit Doñana in Andalucia, the water birds were abundant and El Rocio was becoming lively in the run up to the fiesta.

You can’t beat local knowledge and that came in the form of Peter Warham. He is a longtime resident in Spain. He organised our accommodation, drove us around and helped at every step of the way with translation. He is a very amiable guy, he knows his birds and knows how to find them. We thought his rates very reasonable. He puts in from dawn to dusk. He can be contacted at pwarham@hotmail.co.uk.

I’m writing this in a hotel room in Oslo. Tomorrow I head for Svalbard where the sun will not set until 11.58pm on Saturday August 25th although I won’t be there quite that long.

Eucalyptus …

Our trees have conquered the world. On my travels I occasionally crush a few leaves to transport me to home and I’m always amused to see alien creatures nestled in Aussie foliage. White Storks for example …

But if this next tree really belongs in Oz then the bird clearly belongs in Sub-Saharan Africa …

and the photograph was taken by the side of an irrigation channel in Andalucia!

A colony of Black-headed Weavers has established itself here. The earliest records are from Portugal and presumed to be aviary escapees, they seem to have spread from there.

 

El Rocio …

Modern roads lead to the edge of El Rocio and then stop. In the town the roads are sandy, much better for the horses.

photo GHD

Although the town is small it’s currently preparing itself for an influx of about a million pilgrims. They will walk or ride or arrive in old fashioned caravans  drawn by tractors. A few will come in carts drawn by bullocks. The women will be dressed in their flamenco finery. The roads will be blocked with traffic, some already are. No cars will be parked in the town.

They will be coming to pay their respects to the Virgen Del Rocio or Virgin of the Dew but they may well have a party while they’re there. The tradition dates back to the 13th Century.

Mass will overflow from the lovely old church. A grandstand has been erected in the square to hold some of the overflow.

Guadalupe …

After a day’s birding in the Villuercas park we slipped over a pass that led to a point looking down on historic Guadalupe …

It is the home of one of the Black Madonnas. It was here that the Spanish monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand signed the documents that authorized the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492

Trujillo …

Francisco Pizzaro came from Trujillo. He was the conquistador who subdued the Inca Empire in 1533. Today his statue dominates the town square but otherwise the centre of town has changed little.

You can dine in the square. Late in the evening I sat with a wine in front of me watching Common and Pallid Swifts sweep low through the plaza. White Storks are nesting on the surrounding buildings. They take no notice as the bells ring out right beneath them.

Ely Cathedral …

Ely is about 70 miles slightly east of north from London not far from Cambridge.

An abbey was founded here by St Ethelreda, the wife of a Northumbrian king, in AD 673. The Norman Conquest brought a new standard of church architecture, the present magnificent structure was built in stages from 1081.

Ely is not a big city but its cathedral has the third longest nave in the UK. The Lady Chapel, completed in 1349, is the largest in the UK.

It has one of the few remaining resident choirs. During services they would be seated on either side of the photo above. In the video below they are standing in the Lady Chapel.

Henry Vlll’s reformation imposed a more austere regime on the great churches. Statuary and ornamentation were taboo. The Lady Chapel had a series of figures of the Madonna which would have been brightly painted. Sadly their heads have been knocked off (rather like Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard).

For more information about the cathedral click <HERE>.