Portugal sprung a little Saturday morning surprise on me: I saw my first pigeon release. We happened to be there because the plan was an all-day hike that started near Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Assunção, which is situated at the top of a small mountain overlooking the surrounding municipalities, including Porto.
Since I didn’t know what a pigeon release was until these fellows informed us, all I saw at first was a van in the parking lot of a church on a mountain. As it turned out, we arrived just before they were about to release the homing pigeons, which gave us some time to ready our cameras (Paulo shot the video).
Ice didn’t know what to make of all these birds — too many to chase! They were headed to Gerês, we were told.
Afterwards we hit the trail to reach the source of the Leça River, and near the end of our route back to the car — about five hours later — Paulo made a great little discovery: someone built a granite picnic table right over a diverted stream — a very picturesque spot for a food stop. If you listen closely at the end, you can hear cows mooing behind me.
Here’s a second video clip where you can clearly hear a big “MOOO!” in the middle of it.
More pics from our Saturday around Santo Tirso to come…
January 16, 2016
Album: Nascente Rio Leça [January 16, 2016]
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