Did I say we were heading to Salamanca? Well, there we were heading along the motorway in that direction and we saw a sign for Monfrague National Park, this is an area we visited in June of last year and enjoyed very much so on the spur of the moment we decided to go there again.
It was raining again so for the rest of the day we were confined to the van, but the next morning the sky cleared and we headed out in the van to the visitor centre for the park to pick up some local information for a day in the area. After a cup of coffee we headed to our first Mirador (viewpoint) where we saw our first vultures who were flying despite the strong winds.
We then moved further into the park where we parked up,had lunch then walked up to the castle and viewing platform atop one of the high points of the area. On the way up we saw vultures nesting in the rocks and at the top we were treated to an ariel display by the vultures who would occasionally out of curiosity fly down closer and have a look at us (maybe checking we were still alive and not edible???) We spent quite a long time just sitting watching their elegant soaring on the thermals and admiring the spectacular view across the park.
At one time we climbed the narrow stairs to the top of the castle but the wind was just too strong so had to come back down to the more sheltered viewing areas.
Last time we visited the park the vultures shared the sky with the Spanish Imperial eagles but now in October they have the place to themselves as the Eagles are off seeking winter sun in Africa.
We were lucky to have good weather as we discovered later that other areas in southern Portugal and Spain had violent, destructive storms and flooding, it seems we moved northward in the nick of time!
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| If you look close-up you can see the vultures perched on the rock ledges - well camouflaged! |
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