This weekend my wife and I went to Monfrague to the Feria Internacional de Turismo Ornitológico, or FIO, in Villareal de San Carlos. We stayed at with Martin and Claudia Kelsey in their house El Recuerdo near Trujillo. They have a beautiful place and it has been a pleasure staying there on two occasions now.
The fair itself was in the small village of Villareal de San Carlos in Monfrague and on arrival it was not the amount of traffic and people that got our attention but the hundreds of vultures flying over hill behind the village. We thought they must have been throwing meat into the bushes.
There were exhibitions of all sorts of optics and equipment as well as trade stands for regional governments and tour operators, conservationists and also some workshops for both adults and kiddies. It was a great weekend and to see so much interest in bird watching was great. Why can´t we have the same sort of push here in Castilla la Mancha as in Extremadura? We really have to shake off the whole Quijote and wine image we have here and start to show the rest of Spain we have wilds wilder than Extremadura here.
Anyway, it wasn´t all fair and talking to people, but some birding at the usual spots, picnic, sunshine…a most enjoyable weekend.
