{"id":1963,"date":"2019-06-07T20:10:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T20:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1963"},"modified":"2019-06-07T20:10:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T20:10:41","slug":"04-first-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1963","title":{"rendered":"04. FIRST THINGS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last few days we’ve had a few firsts for the trip.\u00a0 Our first view of a stork was filled fairly swiftly by loads more.\u00a0 Most nests around the Embalase de Pinilla have young about to fledge.\u00a0 One nest was only about 10 feet off the ground.\u00a0 Unlike the two we saw in Buitrago del Lozoya.\u00a0 These would be crane storks I suppose!<\/p>\n

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And the chicks on the far end of the gantry will have got the hang of flying very early on.<\/p>\n

We are now in vulture territory – probably mainly griffon vultures.\u00a0 And having seen one, we soon saw dozens more.<\/p>\n

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One bunch of twenty or so in particular was circling less than 50 feet in the air, obviously having found supper.\u00a0 Avid readers of this blog will recall from last year that that was a “kettle” about to turn into a “wake”!<\/p>\n

Two other firsts were two hunting birds at opposite ends of the size spectrum.\u00a0 The big end was represented by an eagle and the small end by a Scops Owl.\u00a0 To be fair, we never saw the owl – we just heard it’s nocturnal chinking call.\u00a0 “Chink” “chink” “chink”… all night long!<\/p>\n

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Sadly, not my photo!\u00a0 He’s about the size of a starling and he’s following us everywhere we go!<\/p>\n

We also experienced the Spanish weekend camping frenzy.\u00a0 Our lovely peaceful site …<\/p>\n

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… was transformed while we were out on Friday into<\/p>\n

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And the blighters kept arriving until midnight!\u00a0 Still they all go again on Sunday and peace and tranquility return to envelop the site.<\/p>\n

There were two other things we came across for the first time.\u00a0 One good and one terrible.\u00a0 First the good news!\u00a0 We found coffee for just \u20ac1 a cup.\u00a0 Excellent value!\u00a0 The less good thing was the Liverpool football supporters club.\u00a0 Liverpool was playing Spurs in Madrid.\u00a0 We actually moved 30 miles further away from the capital in anticipation of a disturbed night’s sleep.\u00a0 Mistake.\u00a0 We needed to be at least 100 miles away from the match.\u00a0 There were some perfectly respectable supporters, but the majority fell in the category of drunken hooligans.\u00a0 Made us very ashamed to be English.\u00a0 The campsite had no way of controlling them.\u00a0 They found it easier to give all of us who were affected a free night. \u00a0I hate to think what they would have been like if their team had lost!<\/p>\n

One final first (is that possible?) is the coming true of a road sign.\u00a0 Throughout Spain there are 27,456 signs – many of them illuminated with a triangle of red lights – warning of deer on the road.\u00a0 We must have passed 500 such signs when we came across the first deer actually doing what it was supposed to be doing and crossing the road!\u00a0 Right in front of us, just missing a Spaniard who had just blasted past us.<\/p>\n

Enough of that.\u00a0 I’m so far behind it’s untrue.\u00a0 I must try and catch up on some of the fabulous places we have been and things we have seen.\u00a0 Next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last few days we’ve had a few firsts for the trip.\u00a0 Our first view of a stork was filled fairly swiftly by loads more.\u00a0 Most nests around the Embalase de Pinilla have young about to fledge.\u00a0 One nest… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-may-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1975,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions\/1975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}