A Griffon Vulture (Gyps Fulvas) flying close overhead

March 8th is women´s day in Spain and we celebrated by taking a relaxing walk in the snow. Along our trail we saw Griffon Vultures, Great Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Red Kites and pine processionary caterpillar nests.

After all the wind and snow we´ve had recently here in the mountains we were happy to wake up on Sunday morning to bright sunshine. So Phil suggested we go snow shoeing.  We packed a small bag with a picnic, flask and plenty of suncream and jumped into our recently Spanish registered right-hand drive car. We put the cats out the window (it´s OK we live on the ground floor) and headed off up the small winding road towards Aso de Sobremonte a couple of kilometres from Biescas. Half way up the road the trail is marked to the right. 

The trail was blocked by snow so we tucked the car in off the road and headed off on our snow shoes. We walked along a wide sun-dappled, snow covered track lined with scots pine and beech trees. We found various tracks probably from deer, wild boar and fox. Overhead we stopped to watch a passing group of griffon vultures take advantage of today´s thermals and a large group of red kites circling high above us.  We were lucky enough to snap some rather energetic great tits and long-tailed tits flitting from tree to tree. Some reptiles were emerging from their slumber, warming themselves slowly under the suns rays.  

We had our lunch perched on a rock that had fallen into the path which gave us great views down the valley to the sierra de guarra in the south and over the tendeñera to the north.

Views of the Sierra de Tendenera

There were lots of great tits in the woods that we were walking through