Easy 'Alpine' Birding in Spain's Picos de Europa

Monday 26 August 2024

Alpine Chough - Fuente Dé

One of the advantages of being based in south-west England is that it is easy to access ferries to the continent, including the Brittany Ferries routes from Plymouth and Portsmouth to Santander and Bilbao in Northern Spain. For the naturalist, these crossings offer the potential to watch seabirds and marine mammals in the Bay of Biscay (but that's maybe for another blog post). Even better, they deliver you within a couple of hours drive of one of Europe's great, and perhaps under-appreciated, wildlife hotspots - the Picos de Europa.

August is not the best time to appreciate the wildlife of this corner of Northern Spain. Days can be fiercely hot and most of the plants have long since flowered and withered away. The high meadows have been mown, young birds have fledged. Nevertheless, there is still much to see. Although we were based in the northern Picos, we couldn't miss a trip to the southern side of the range, where the cable car at Fuente Dé allows easy access to the high mountains. It helps if you have a head for heights.

The drive round to Fuente Dé, through the spectacular gorge of the Deva River, took longer than we had expected due to roadworks, so we didn't arrive at the lower cable car station until 1000. (Staying on the southern side of the Picos range, for example around Potes, would allow you to get up to Fuente Dé much earlier.) The cable car station was already busy; we bought a ticket - apparently these can be purchased on line to save a wait - and settled down at the café for coffee and bacon bocadillos (baguettes). Although generally quiet for birds, there was some activity in the nearby pine trees in the shape of a Nuthatch and several Chaffinches. A surprise was a Marsh Tit (below) giving close views while hopping around the tables looking for food scraps. I've never seen them do this in the UK.

Marsh Tit around the cafe tables - Fuente Dé

The cable car (teleférico) rises steeply to an upper station at 1,853 metres without intervening supports, a climb of 753 metres. It moves quickly, taking around 3 minutes and 40 seconds to do the journey. It is a long, long way down. I decided to focus my view on the cliff wall ahead of me, my excuse being the outside (in fact highly unlikely) chance of spotting a Wallcreeper. This is one of my European 'bogey birds'; and so it remains. We didn't see one on this trip. In truth, they are more often seen at lower levels during the winter months. A high altitude summer sighting would be unusual.

The Fuente Dé cable car. The top station is a tiny dot on the cliff top.

Looking down from the top cable car station.

The view from the top station is, needless to say, stupendous. Do not pick a day when the mist is down! You have been transported into a high altitude, alpine landscape. And there are birds to match.

View west from the top cable car station. The peak on the left is Alto de Padierna (2314m)

We had just left the top cable station building, called 'El Cable' which seems a bit too literal, when the first high altitude speciality came hopping down the path - Alpine Accentor (below), a new species for me. 

Alpine Accentor - Fuente Dé top cable station

As you might guess, this is a close relation of the Dunnock. What the photo doesn't show is that Alpine Accentor is clearly larger than a Dunnock. It also has a yellowy-orange base to the bill (which is black in Dunnock) and a dark wing panel between the two white bars (usually brown in Dunnock). The plumage of this individual was rather faded; the differences would be more obvious in autumn.

The bird was extremely tame, seeking food discards from passing tourists. This made it a bit of an anticlimax (I prefer my wildlife to be wild!), but I was still very pleased to see it. And, as it happens, the bird was no longer around when we returned to the top cable station a couple of hours later; there were a lot more people around, so it may well be best to get up there early when things are quieter.

Having gained the height without any effort, we wanted to do some exploring. While there is a good paths leading away from the top cable station it is worth bearing in mind that this is a high mountain environment and abrupt changes to weather conditions are possible. The Picos can get very wet and misty. We were kitted out with a map, compass and hillwalking gear - very little of which we ended up using. But on another day these could have been vital. Getting lost in these mountains would be serious.

We followed the land-rover track north up to an obvious col, the Horcaina de Covarrobres, which gives an extensive view north into the heart of the mountains. It was already very warm (around 26 degrees) and wildlife was hard to locate in the stony landscape. We came across a few Chalk-hill Blue butterflies (below), the same species that we see on the Dorset chalk downlands. In Spain, its distribution is restricted to the northern coastal strip. It's worth noting here that the Picos are mainly limestone mountains.

Chalk-hill Blue butterflies - Picos de Europa.

There weren't many flowers out. Nevertheless, we were able to find a few montane specialities. Pygmy Hawksbeard Crepis pygmaea (below) is a low plant, with slightly downy leaves, that prefers scree and other rocky areas. How it manages to survive in such an extreme environment beats me. It is found in other mountain ranges, including the Pyrenees and SW Alps.

Pygmy Hawksbeard Crepis pygmaea finding a foothold in the rocky scree.

In one of the few grassy areas we came across the lovely Merendera Colchicum montanum (below). This is a relative of the Autumn Crocus (it has now been moved into the same genus), from which it is distinguished by having open, not fused, petals. The flowers pop up before the leaves. This species is confined to mountain pastures in Spain, Portugal and the Pyrenees.

Merendera Colchicum montanum - near Fuente Dé top cable station. 

There were plenty of lizards around, basking in the sun and vanishing rapidly when we approached. Lizard identification in Spain is rather harder than back in the UK given the greater reptile diversity - which is a good thing. I think that the one pictured below is a Common Wall Lizard, but am happy to be corrected. Within Spain this species only found in northern and central areas.

Common Wall Lizard - near Fuente Dé top cable station. 

A few Black Redstarts (below) were flitting around, although they kept their distance. We only saw these at higher altitudes in the Picos which is unusual; in my experience they are normally familiar birds of rural hamlets at lower altitudes in Spain and France.

Black Redstart - near Fuente Dé top cable station. 

As we were returning to the top cable station an Alpine Chough flew past us (below), the first that we had seen today. We were soon to come across many more. The yellow bill was obvious, even in flight; Red-billed Choughs are also present in the Picos de Europa; I had seen a couple of these a few days before on a hill in the north of the range, but none appeared at Fuente Dé. The only other corvid that we encountered at high altitude was a solitary Raven.

Alpine Chough fly-by - near Fuente Dé top cable station.

As we rounded a corner of the hillside we could see that a group of over twenty Alpine Choughs were loitering near to the top cable car station. Apparently, the collective noun for choughs is a 'chattering', but these weren't making a lot of noise. Instead, they were eyeing up picnicking tourists. At least this allowed some close views (below - and the opening photo of this post). The red legs come as quite a contrast to the yellow bill, while the black eye seems to vanish into the dark plumage.

Another Alpine Chough - near Fuente Dé top cable station.

It was almost time to catch a cable car back down into the valley, but we were drawn back to the viewpoint outside the upper station by the sight of Griffon Vultures riding the thermals along the mountain edge. Up here, you are at eye level with these magnificent birds. They are common in the Picos; we saw them most on days, albeit usually as specks in the sky above the mountains.

Griffon Vulture - from Fuente Dé top cable station.

Among the Griffon Vultures I was able to pick out two Egyptian Vultures; these are smaller, with more white on their wings and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail. Unfortunately I was only able to get poor record photos of one bird (below); it looked like a subadult, with a more 'muddy' appearance than the pristine adults. Egyptian Vultures are summer migrants that are re-establishing in the Picos after near-extinction in the area.

Subadult Egyptian Vulture (record pic) - from Fuente Dé top cable station.

Nearby stood an information board (below) describing the birding highlights of Fuente Dé. Nice to see, but it did serve as a reminder of the species that we had missed - notably Snowfinch, Golden Eagle (these are apparently rare here), Water Pipit and Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush. While Crag Martins hadn't turned up either, we had enjoyed good views of them a couple days earlier at Sotres on the northern side of the Picos. But I couldn't really complain - it had been a fantastic day in the high mountains. I would love to return to climb one of the higher peaks.