Picos de Europa, another favourite destination

For four years in a row – 2022 to 2025 – we had fully booked Honeyguide groups in the Picos de Europa with the Pau Lucio - Chris Durdin double-act as guides. This year, 7 – 14 June 2026, Pau is returning to the Picos de Europa, and we have room for more in the group. We can add a second guide if there is lots of additional interest, though it won’t be me (Chris) as I was keen to return to the French Pyrenees in June.

Honeyguide leader Pau Lucio serves 'Picos scrumpy' at a café. (Photo from this collection: Honeyguide Facebook 2023.)

I thought I should write some notes about why our Picos de Europa holiday appeals to me: why I’ve been happy to return several times, as have several Honeyguiders. I think our Picos de Europa web page explains the area’s delights pretty well, though a blog gives an opportunity to explain it in a different way.

Hotel Tierra de la Reina, also popular with bikers.

Boca de Huérgano, a great place to stay. The Hotel Tierra de la Reina and Boca de Huérgano make a very good base. There are walks for pre-breakfast birdwatching in every direction, with plenty to see. Black redstarts are common and there is a white stork nest just around the corner (and others nearby). Rock sparrows are reliable in Boca de Huérgano – a bird that can be difficult to find elsewhere. There are usually common redstarts nesting in a village garden.

Juvenile rock sparrow, unusually in a tree, Boca de Huérgano (PL, June 2025).

A walk to the old Roman Bridge is a familiar routine, and we always see dippers on the river.

Roman bridge in Boca de Huérgano, with dipper (David Bennett).

Elena and her team at the Hotel Tierra de la Reina are very welcoming and we always enjoy the typically Spanish food. Explaining the choices is something that Pau does with great patience. This includes the near-daily explanation every year, on the subject of puddings (postres), that flan in Spain is like a crème caramel … 

There are midwife toads in Boca de Huérgano, calling by the hotel and elsewhere. We always hear them, and sometimes we get lucky and see one.

Midwife toad near the hotel.

A compact itinerary. The Picos de Europa is huge, and an area where too much travelling could be a risk. This holiday is very much Pau’s Picos: it’s an area of the western Picos that he’s been to many times and knows well. Pau also takes family holidays here, which speaks volumes, and he is always keen to return with another Honeyguide group. One site has my favourite fern: moonwort.

Moonwort, which grows near this mountain pool.

Cafés and picnic places. Our pre-picnic routine (as on other Spanish holidays, especially) is a café in a small town, and very nice they are too.

Bar in Valdeón: an impressive backdrop here, and there is a very good cheese shop nearby.

There are several conveniently located picnic spots, rural in character with good wildlife around us, where we eat the hotel’s generous picnics.

 

One of our regular picnic places.

Meadows. Pau reminded, while I was writing this blog, that flower-rich meadows are a holiday highlight for him, and as a result we see a rich range of butterflies (see below, photos mostly taken in meadows), day-flying moths and other wildlife. From a UK perspective, Honeyguiders comment that the meadows feel like we are stepping back in time to when our own countryside was more diverse.

Picos meadow with Honeyguiders.

The above meadow is what you might expect as mountain meadow. The second meadow photo, below, is rather different, and comes from an area west and slightly outside the Picos de Europa, with a more Iberian feel. For those who've been, it's where we usually see bee-eaters: the soil is sandy and ideal for bee-eaters' nests. It's at its best after a wet spring, leading to a carpet of flowers: white flax, thyme and horseshoe vetch, studded with orchids, sawfly orchids especially.

Dry meadow with white flax.

Fuente Dé. Our one longer trip is to Fuente Dé, where we take a cable car as a practical way to see the landscape and wildlife of the high tops. It’s a bit of a journey and involves a queue to ascend in a cable car, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s done for good reason. There is always a consensus in our groups that the alpine experience makes it a very memorable day. 

Group at Fuente Dé, June 2025.

The flowers are lovely: compact, low-growing species like gentians and alpine toadflax. Alpine choughs are guaranteed and most years we find snowfinches, wallcreeper (that may take a little patience), bearded vulture and alpine accentor. At some stage we expect to find chamois, often a family party on a snow patch.

Fuente Dé alpine flowers collage. Check the IDs on Honeyguide Facebook 2025.

Wonderful butterflies. We saw 59 species of butterflies in 2025, 62 in 2024 … you get the picture. Yet the list varies every year, and we keep adding to the master checklist: for example, there were some early species in 2025, which was weather related. Choosing what butterflies to illustrate in this blog is tricky, hence the collage. 

Butterfly collage, June 2023. IDs here in our Honeyguide Facebook 2024 collection.

Conservation: this holiday supports Asociación Zerynthia, a small Spanish NGO running projects to study and conserve butterflies. Pau is involved with Asociación Zerynthia, including in a project in his home area of Valencia region, and it’s nice to have that personal connection. 

More information about the Picos de Europa via the Picos de Europa web page, from where there are links to sets of photos and holiday reports.

Chris Durdin

Winter at Thorpe Marshes

Winter can have a stark beauty at Thorpe Marshes, Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s nature reserve on the eastern edge of Norwich. Sunny days are best for enjoying the subdued colours. These are mostly browns and greens ... apart from that added magic when it snows, as it did in early January.

Thorpe Marshes in snow, 11 January 2026, from the railway bridge.

That cold spell brought an influx of ducks onto the unfrozen parts of St Andrews Broad: about 50 teals, 25 shovelers and, unusually, six wigeons. Having open water is a valuable part of the mix at Thorpe Marshes: when the marshes are relatively quiet, there are usually ducks on the gravel pit. Numbers are highest in the early part of the year, especially tufted ducks – a diving duck – and gadwalls, which are dabbling ducks.

Tufted ducks, pochards and gadwalls on St Andrews Broad  (Derek Longe).

Elsewhere on the marsh, getting out may be more about fresh air and exercise than seeing lots of wildlife. However, there are birds you can hear, even if they stay hidden. Several water rails overwinter, a mostly secretive bird but with a range of calls, the most remarkable of which sounds like a squealing piglet.

Winter view at Thorpe Marshes, 16 December 2025.

Cetti’s warblers sing their explosive song from cover, especially on bright days. Two stonechats are often on show, perching on vegetation tops, especially on sunny days. This winter a chiffchaff – sometimes more than one – is a surprising regular bird, as they are best known as migrants. It helps if you know its soft contact call.

I lead NWT’s monthly guided walks at Thorpe Marshes, and on quiet winter days it’s good to know where to find wildlife that doesn’t fly or sing. In general, marshes are not the best place for finding fungi, but happily there are several reliable species on various bits of dead wood on the nature reserve.

Blushing bracket: on the left with 'blush' colouring; right as it looks now.

Near the railway bridge, a willow tree has a blushing bracket fungus. The photo on the right shows it as it looks now: in the autumn it was redder in colour, hence the name.

Jelly ear fungi.

Close to the tidal flap, a dead elder always has jelly ear fungi. How they look depends on the weather. When dry, the fungi are black and shrivelled. The photo is after a damp spell, and you can see its ear-like form.

King Alfred's cakes fungi.

On a dead ash stump by the riverside path, there are several weird black lumps. These are called King Alfred’s cakes. You couldn’t call them pretty, but it’s a great descriptive name. We all know the story of King Alfred burning cakes. Whether or not that’s true, you can see that it’s an apt name.

Yellow brain fungi.

An intriguing winter fungus is yellow brain. It’s small, so you need sharp eyes to see its delightfully revolting, though colourful, form.

Red-necked grebe, January 2026 (Drew Lyness).

Looking back on 2025, there were two stand-out wildlife highlights at Thorpe Marshes. In January, a red-necked grebe spent three days on the gravel pit, before a longer stay at Whitlingham Country Park. It earned itself a cover picture in February 2025’s Just Thorpe St Andrew magazine.

Scarce chaser dragonflies, 15 June 2025.

Scarce chaser dragonfly was a new colonist in June. Previously there were a few records, but they were absent as a breeding species. Scarce chasers have a limited distribution in the UK, hence their name, though this includes several Broadland nature reserves, and to reach Thorpe Marshes they haven’t had to come far, as there are good numbers at the RSPB’s Strumpshaw Fen nature reserve a few miles to the east in the Yare Valley. On 17 June, on a guided walk, we counted nine male scarce chasers and one female. The photo shows a mating pair of scarce chasers, proof of breeding, of course. 

Chris Durdin lives in Thorpe St Andrew. He runs Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays www.honeyguide.co.uk and is the guide for the monthly guided walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes.

More information about Thorpe Marshes, including recent sightings, on www.honeyguide.co.uk/thorpemarshes.htm

News, wildlife highlights, events and more - straight to your inbox from Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Turn your inbox wild today: norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/SignUp

Chris Durdin, 11 January 2026

This blog was first written as an article for Just Thorpe St Andrew.