The Ebro Delta is an area of marshland and lagoons a couple of hours south of Barcelona. Apart from being extremely beautiful, it's reckoned to be one of the best birdwatching sites in Europe.
We arrived there after dark, and in fog, on Friday night and stayed in the Delta Hotel in Deltebre.
The hotel provided us with excellent accommodation, service and meals. It had its own mini-lagoon, stocked with Mallards, and was adjacent to rice fields.
Saturday morning I was up and out at dawn, hoping to explore the lagoon at Canal Vell, one of the most highly recommended birding sites in the area.
Unfortunately, when I arrived there, I found that the lagoon was closed for hunting until 5:00 p.m. each day. As sunset was at about 5:30, this pretty much ruled out birdwatching there during our trip!
I had to make do with birding the nearby rice fields. As everywhere else at Ebro, these were busy with Gray Herons, Egrets and Gulls. One of my few interesting sightings was a roadside Kestrel.
Back at the hotel, the flooded rice fields had Gray Herons and Cattle Egrets.
Although the trees in the gardens had only House Sparrows, the entrance road had White Wagtails, a very common bird in Catalonia but one that I always really enjoyed watching.
So the first morning at Ebro was disappointing for birds. Would the afternoon be any better?
4 comments:
Shame about the lagoon, Jeff - I'm sure you'll still see plenty of birds though, nice photo of the Kestrel.
There were LOTS of birds, but not that many different species. Also, most birds kept their distance.
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Hi, Anonymous. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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