Andalucia’s aviary

Covering over 45,500 hectares in the south-eastern corner of Spain, Cabo de Gata-Níjar is a wild and isolated landscape with some of Europe’s most original geological features. The eponymous mountain range is Spain’s largest volcanic rock formation with sharp peaks and crags in ochre-hues – falling steeply to the sea creating jagged 100m-high cliffs. Offshore are numerous tiny rocky islands and, underwater, extensive coral reefs teeming with marine life.

High temperatures and the lowest rainfall in the Iberian peninsula have engendered a large semi-desert area, with characteristic shrubby vegetation and dwarf fan palms. But the park also encompasses an outstanding variety of habitats, from coastal dunes, beaches, steep cliffs, saltpans, a substantial marine zone of 12,200 hectares, saltmarshes, inland arid steppe and dry river beds. Designated a Unesco Biosphere reserve in 1997, the park shelters an extraordinary wealth of wildlife, including many rare and endemic plants and endangered fauna.

One of Spain’s most important wetland areas for breeding and overwintering birds is the Salinas de Cabo de Gata, the saltwater lagoon that runs parallel to the beach and is separated from it by a 400m-wide sand bar.

So, the all-important question: what can you expect to see in Cabo de Gata? Well, it really depends on the time of year you visit and the area you concentrate on; it’s a big place, but there are, if you like, four distinct “zones” where diverse species of bird make a permanent or temporary home – and depending where in the park you are and when, you can be pretty sure of seeing curlews, egrets, greenfinches, kestrels, avocets, oystercatchers, grey and purple herons, storks, black-winged stilts, little owls, bee-eaters, Dupont’s larks – and, perhaps most spectacularly, flamingos.

Actually, that doesn’t even begin to cover it. As well as an incredibly diverse range of flora and fauna – lizards and butterflies abound – and outstandingly beautiful topology, the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park is permanent home to over 1,100 diverse bird species, and a winter stopping-off point for a further 142 species.

It is a birder’s paradise.