Well no longer any doubt about the birds. The 2 red kites quartering an olive grove and I thought the calls were distress calls from the ground. But today I started to see large vortexes of storks with more than 100 birds per funnel. I watched them form twice. One minute there would be 150 birds in formation and then the lead bird would begin to spiral and the rest would follow. Most were wheeling clockwise but some were flying obstinately against the flow. About 2 km before Merida there were 2 Eagles hunting in oak scrub. It was too far to tell what sort they were but one of them dropped onto some unseen prey in that falling anvil style that eagles have.

As I was crossing the majestic Roman bridge there were about 30 Cormorants drying their wings in the branches of a submerged tree. There were also Coots and Moorhens in the reeds.

If you wonder why most of the wildlife mentioned are birds it's for 2 reasons. First I am walking in the day and most mammals are nocturnal, less mad dogs and Englishmen, and secondly the Spanish are very keen hunters. They forecast, or boast, in newspapers about how many million animals they hope to kill in a season. That is not a criticism, it is just how it is.