Sierra Morena<\/a> with the plan to do the lower vally then go to the upper valley in the afternoon. Drove to the lower recreational area, parked up and walked up to the dam spotting various birds and deer. We also spotted red squirrels which are apparently not usual in that park. There is a bridge just in front of the dam (for walkers only) and already some people on the bridge. Joe got some photos of a kingfisher which he’s been wanting to do for years, and now he’s had two opportunities. Our guide headed back for the van and the rain started really coming down by the time he got back. We headed for the upper valley but the rain was very heavy and the clouds had closed in so you really couldn’t see into the valley at all. We passed several cars coming down and they were saying you couldn’t really see or do anything up there. The plan was to have a picnic lunch but in that weather that plan was scrapped and we headed back to the hotel for sandwiches. Joe and I got a local chorizo sandwich which was excellent. And chips – chips came with just about everything!<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe headed back to the lower area, parked a bit closer to the entrance and walked a bit looking for otters. Didn’t see otters but did see Iberian magpies, Iberian green woodpecker, and wagtails. Then we drove back up to van where about an hour earlier there had been otters according to the people there. But none while we were there, though the kingfisher did make an appearance. Spent the time watching birds and chatting with the other birders on the bridge. Saw three high flying large birds which were identified as griffon and cinereous vultures. One good thing with the weather – it was very atmospheric in the damp and fog. When it got dark we headed back to Los Pinos for supper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Joe snored all night I spent the day half asleep because for some reason I didn’t link having two rooms with the fact that I could have switched rooms and gotten sleep! It was an overcast, chilly, rainy sort of day. We headed into the Sierra Morena with the plan to do the lower […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-16Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4278,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/05\/day-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":0},"title":"Day Five","date":"Friday, 5 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Changed rooms and got sleep! Disappointed to see the same cloudy damp weather. Headed back to the dam on the lower area, again stopping close to the entrance where we saw otters! Spent quite a bit of time watching the otters, walking along the river to follow them. Saw a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":378,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/13\/still-in-yorkshire\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":1},"title":"Still in Yorkshire","date":"Sunday, 13 June 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"So woke up and had breakfast. The Met Office had said that the day would be cloudy but dry (one of the reasons we came up here) so of course it was pouring with rain. Ho hum. So our idea of leaving the car at the hotel and walking around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":320,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/29\/death-valley\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":2},"title":"Death Valley","date":"Tuesday, 29 December 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Picked up our car, a cute little VW Beetle. Which was great until I got to Death Valley and realised we really should have booked a four wheel drive! We got lost getting out of Vegas, they don't much like road signs or warning you before a turn. But we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/12\/last-day-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":3},"title":"Last day","date":"Saturday, 12 April 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Of course the past two days we've had cloud, some spitting rain but not much, and a few sunny spells. So last night we got ready to go to dinner and walked out to a downpour. Got to the restaurant and had a lovely meal despite the party going on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":281,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/18\/out-and-about-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":4},"title":"Out and About Part 2","date":"Thursday, 18 June 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Have we mentioned it's wet? Very wet? Miserably wet? Joe thinks it started out drier, but that's because he's so wet. Anyway, we drove out to Inverinan to see osprey. Along the way Joe said he saw something so I pulled into a forest track and parked and Joe headed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2009\/06\/14\/loch-awe\/","url_meta":{"origin":4276,"position":5},"title":"Loch Awe","date":"Sunday, 14 June 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday 13 June So got into Glasgow and started trying to find how to get to the airport - hired the car from the airport so we wouldn't have to drive through Glasgow! After running about looking for the bus stop, we finally found it, just as the bus drove\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4277,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions\/4277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}