The best way of getting there is to take the N-521 road from Cáceres towards Portugal. Only a few kilometres after leaving the city we see a set of ruined buildings on the righthand side with an eye-catching number of white-stork nests.

The first town we come to is Malpartida de Caceres, on the outskirts of which there is a lake affording good views of various waterbird species and waders on passage.

It should be borne in mind that the lakes of this area, together with the Guadalquivir saltmarshes and the wetlands of southern Alicante, are one of the few known wintering quarters of the Temminck's stint in the Iberian Peninsula. A road-sign in the town itself points off leftwards to the site called Los Barruecos. It's well worth a visit, not so much for the number of birds we'll see as the picturesque scenery. Los Barruecos is a set of lakes surrounded by huge granite blocks with stork nests perched on top. There's a good chance of seeing otters here.

Continuing in the Portugal direction we cross stunning "dehesas" (open grazing woods) with dense cork-oak woods climbing up the hills on our left. After the town of Aliseda we come to the Brozas turnoff; here there is a small lay-by where we can park the car. From here it is fairly easy to spot Bonelli's eagle, Egyptian vulture, monk vulture, griffon vulture and black stork. It was in a nest very close to here that the famous imperial eagle chick called "Pizarro" was ringed, then to be tracked in its juvenile dispersal across the Sahara as far as Senegal. Only 8 kilometres from this point lie the Llanos de Brozas, flatlands famed for their fine population of steppe birds.
One of the best spots to see imperial eagle is the mountain pass called Puerto Hélice. To get there you first have to go to Salorino and then take the road towards San Vicente de Alcántara, the world's cork-producing capital. After passing an area of oak plantations, the dehesa starts to get denser and denser until cork oak takes over from holm oak on the slopes of the sierra itself. As the road climbs up to the mountain pass it winds through dense, shady vegetation dominated by strawberry trees, flax-leaved daphne and different species of the cistus family such as the sageleaf rockrose. Although the road is very narrow it's well worth trying to find a stopping place where you can pull over for a while and look for other typical species of Mediterranean woodland. A few years ago the lesser spotted woodpecker was detected here, though it is not yet known to breed in the area. At the top of the pass, which serves as the border between the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz, a small track leads off to the left. We leave the car here and follow the track across a cistus heath. After about 500 metros, just when the first rocky outcrops start, we fork off left and climb up to the top of the slope. This is an excellent vantage point for spotting imperial eagle, Bonelli's eagle and other commoner raptors such as booted eagle and short-toed eagle; the last two species are summer visitors and hence can be seen only in spring and summer. Sweeping views from Puerto Hélice In winter the soaring birds of prey are replaced by flocks of cranes and wood pigeons, the latter sometimes up to a million strong.
The trip ends on the frontier with Portugal, in the Serra de San Mamede. Just behind the buildings that once formed the customs post is a bluff with a vulture colony. The Bonelli's eagle also haunts these crags, while bullfinches can often be found at the foot of them. Good chances of seeing or hearing eagle owl.

Santiago Villa.