{"id":37,"date":"2008-01-09T13:02:42","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T11:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birding-and-wildlife-trips\/birding-in-spain-the-wallcreeper\/"},"modified":"2008-02-10T18:46:29","modified_gmt":"2008-02-10T16:46:29","slug":"birding-in-spain-the-wallcreeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birding-and-wildlife-trips\/birding-in-spain-the-wallcreeper\/","title":{"rendered":"Birding in Spain: the Wallcreeper"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s December. Imagine you\u2019re walking along the base of a steep rock face
\nsomewhere in the Pre-Pyrenees. You detect a movement and look up. There\u2019s a bird, and it\u2019s close enough for you to see its long, slender downcurved bill and its slate-grey and black plumage. A moment later the bird flutters, and on its open, butterfly-like wings you see a dazzling flash of deep crimson.<\/p>\n

Rejoice! You are now among the lucky few that have set eyes on one of nature\u2019s jewels: the Wallcreeper<\/strong>. An amazing bird that is at home clinging to vertical rock faces in order to probe into nooks and crannies and pry out spiders and insects with that slender, downcurved bill. Little wonder then that when foreign birders visit this country this is usually the bird they most want to see<\/strong>, or that even the practical-minded Chinese have baptised it with the graceful name of \u201crock flower\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Birds<\/p>\n

In the breeding season the Wallcreeper<\/strong> inhabits sheer cliff faces in the Pyrenees<\/strong> at altitudes of between 2,000 and 3,000m. That means that between May and September the Wallcreeper is rarely an easy bird to see<\/strong> \u2013 first of all one has to reach its secluded mountain haunts and then one has to strain the neck muscles, and often the patience too, in order to spot it among towering mountains of naked rock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s one reason though why winter is not all bad: by then Wallcreepers have left their high mountains in Spain<\/strong> to occupy more accessible terrain in the pre-Pyrenees<\/strong>, Montsant<\/strong>, els Ports<\/strong>\u2026even cliffs by the sea at Cap de Creus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One day last winter I made a personal pilgrimage to the sunny rock faces of Montsec<\/strong> and I received my reward. I took home the Wallcreeper\u2019s colours<\/strong> and a little of its wing-flashing warmth, clutching onto the vision as I descended once more into the blanket of fog enshrouding Lleida and the surrounding plains.<\/p>\n

And I hadn\u2019t even strained my neck muscles.<\/p>\n

Article published in Catalonia Today December 2007<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at<\/strong> http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com<\/em><\/p>\n

And Steve West\u2019s latest book<\/strong> \u201cFlying over the Pyrenees, standing on the plains<\/a>\u201d
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s December. Imagine you\u2019re walking along the base of a steep rock face somewhere in the Pre-Pyrenees. You detect a movement and look up. There\u2019s a bird, and it\u2019s close enough for you to see its long, slender downcurved bill and its slate-grey and black plumage. A moment later the bird flutters, and on its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birding-and-wildlife-trips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}