Deer Watch – Montfragüe Natural Park 22/10/25
Thought we’d take our time driving through the rest of the park today as there’s so much wildlife to see here.
After crossing a new bridge over the River Tajo, we were then lucky enough to be able to walk back over the old bridge which is often submerged when the water levels are high. There’s also a house there that spends much of its time under water, but today you could walk through the door – so weird. Ended up doing a circular walk which was lovely when the sun was out, otherwise a little cool.
Called in at the tourist office in Villarreal de San Carlos to get a proper map as the area is quite confusing. I think it’s because it’s the confluence of two different rivers that were dammed in the ‘60’s to create big reservoirs with many bridges, roads and paths.
It seems that virtually every Spanish town and village has a tourist office and this one had two employees behind a giant desk in a big room with a few pictures and leaflets in it. Guy asked where it was most likely that we would see deer .. “Everywhere “ came the reply 🤣
We continued on our planned route after stopping for lunch and yes, I suppose we did see deer everywhere! Sometimes hard to spot but totally used to human curiosity. They were so beautiful and looked a little less malnourished than the one we saw yesterday.
Sat in a bird hide for a while overlooking the Tiétar river where they often have eagles nesting. Lots of vultures again,but we didn’t see anything different.
On our way out, in a field with a few deer in, we saw a lovely cow with what looked like a new born calf. She looked a bit non-plussed as if to say ‘how’s that happened’!
In a village called Saucedilla now. We came for the motorhome parking and services, but they’re right next door to another bird watching visitor centre. We went for a quick look..again two people working there and before we knew it we’d been given a key to a bird hide. Problem was it was really windy so nothing around this evening. “Keep the key for tomorrow” said the kind lady, leaving us no option but to make use of these expensive facilities 🤣
