To Miajadas

April 19, 2024

Before we leave town, let’s stop and look at Janos’ video and the aerial view it gives us of the castle and amphitheater:

We’re on our own again today on another short, easy affair without much to say about for some reason. I’m surprised to look back and see how few photographs we came away with, and there’s not even a video for some reason. A pleasant ride though, and the storks definitely livened things up. We were especially enthralled to bike through a village with storks nesting everywhere, some calling to their mates by loudly clapping their bills together.

Or may be that was yesterday on the way to Medellín? I’m not sure now. I’ve gotten behind, and I get these two days mixed up when I look back on them. I’d better get serious about catching up. With that in mind, I’ll just stop here. Bye for now!

Oh, wait. There is something else to say about the ride. We’ve been biking through a surprisingly interesting area for birding these last two days. Yesterday I saw three hoopoes, and today I must have seen fifteen bee-eaters in four different groups - more than I’ve seen in total before today.

Several miles into the ride, Medellín‘s castle is still the most prominent feature on the skyline.

#211: Common waxbill, the bird on the left, caught fraternizing with a bird of a different feather that you might recognize by now.

Stork hotel. I count at least seven occupied nests on this wreck.

Four storklets!!!! Actually, it could easily be five but I was happy to catch four exposed little bills at the same time.

Approaching Miajadas. Rachael’s been waiting in the shade for the slower half of the team to finally catch up so we can go get lunch.

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Oh, wait. We can’t move on yet because there’s more to the day. It was a short, easy ride and there are no obvious attractions in Miajadas to hold our attention, so after digesting lunch we leave for another hike and bike. Rachael walks to the neighboring village, Escurial, and is totally enraptured by the small park there, its pond teeming with ducks, geese, and their endearing newborns. She was so excited that she called me up from there recommending that I head that way myself. It was a little difficult piecing together what she was saying because she kept breaking off to talk to a duck that had apparently imprinted on her and was following along behind.

Rachael’s pond really is a pretty little place. I was sure I had taken a shot of her pointing at the ducks, but it must have fallen out of the camera.

For myself, I plotted out a seven or eight mile loop through the small farming roads along town, thinking I might pick up a new bird or two. This seemed like a possibility because we saw so many birds on utility wires or the rim of irrigation conduits.

It didn’t turn out like that though, because I found myself on a road I fell in love with - a paved service road following an irrigation canal that was a delight to ride: shaded by oaks and pines, absolutely traffic-free except for two other bikers, and good for birds. The big surprise was the Iberian magpies, a bird I was hoping to see before leaving Spain. I’ve never knowingly seen one before, but it’s no exaggeration to say I saw fifty of them this evening to. They were constantly flushing out of the woods and flying back into them again.

I kept following this road for several miles hoping for a better magpie shot, but eventually stopped to check the map to see if it would ever connect up to anything or if I should turn back. It did connect in what looked like a reasonable distance, so I continued forward. I ended up putting 23 miles in, not making it back to town until the few cars on the road had their headlights on.