Day 145: Spain Day 38

Friday, October 14, 2016

Grebe banding was so interesting.  You wade into a shallow lake, about 20 people with you, all holding a very long, hip-height net.  You corral the flightless grebes into an enclosed area, then grab each one and put them into floating crates.  These crates are taken to a dry area, where you and all of the group start processing.  There are three groups: one to process grebes that had already been banded (there is an astonishing 60% recapture rate, since the grebes come back to the same salt lakes every winter), one to process unbanded grebes, and one group to verify the grebes' sex, age, and molt with the all-knowing Luis.  You were in the last group, since you were new to grebe banding and thus didn't directly process them.  You took the grebes that the two groups had finished with and got into the grebe line.  The grebe line ended with Luis, who took the bird and told you what age, sex, and molting stage the grebe was in.  You then remembered that information and went back to tell the processors.  They would fix anything that didn't add up to what Luis said.

Where we did the grebe banding was in Huelva, the capital of the southern region of Spain, Andalucía.  Huelva is an industrial city, and they filter ocean water out to create mountains of salt to use in industrial processes.  You were walking in a very salty, shallow lake, thus your legs were white when you came out of the water.  You rinsed off in a lake that was less concentrated in salt; a lake closer to the ocean.  Then you helped band for three hours, and went to lunch with several fellow banders.  It was great, and you felt like a part of something wonderful, regarding both the work done and the people you did it with.

My sister and I had Paco pick us up in El Rocío at 5.  It took three and a half hours to get to Alhaurin de la Torre, where our grandmother had prepared us a delicious dinner.  It was really nice to be back, chilling with Abuelita and eating yummy, homemade food.  The grebe banding and entirety of the Doñana trip was unforgettable.

These floating crates were brought to land full of grebes

The recapture-processing group collecting data on the grebes who had been banded before this year

This guy's about to go to the water again!

Day 144: Spain Day 37

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Private tour day.  We woke up at 6:30 and got ready, packing some ham sandwiches for lunch.  We were picked up by one of the tour guides, Antonio, and he commented on how we looked young.  Thanks dude, thanks.  It's okay though, we do look young.

Our actual tour guide for the private Donana tour was named Maria.  She started by speaking to us in English, but we explained to her that we would rather speak in Spanish for practice.  That turned out great!  We chatted about why Vanessa and I were there, what we were doing in our gap year, and learning foreign languages.  We had lunch with her afterwards too.

There are several different habitats in Donana.  The first was pinares, where pines dominated, and wide sand roads went through it, leading to Sevilla and Cadiz.  El Rocio, the horse and dry lake town, is a pilgrimage spot, we learned.  The church there holds La Virgen del Rocio, and in the summer, hundreds of people walk through the Donana roads to get to the church and do a procession at dawn.

We saw rabbits, heard Sardinian Warblers, and watched the forest turn gold with sunlight, morning dew glittering in the spider webs and pine needles.  Then there was the cork tree area leading to a huge field of tall, silvery bushes. also wet with dew.  Cork trees are big in this part of Spain and Portugal, though synthetic cork has done a lot of damage on this industry.  The cork trees have to be at least 40 years old before the outer layer of bark can be harvested in the perfect shape of a cork.  After the initial harvest, corks can be collected from the trees every 15 years.  The other habitats were maritime forest and rice fields.

The outer layer of a cork tree

Cranes flying over rice fields

A deer!

The tour was kind of stop-and-go to look at birds, and here are the best lifers (birds we had never seen before):

• Little Owl: there was a cork tree we stopped at briefly to see if there was a Little Owl there.  It was not, but later, Vanessa spotted one sitting on a sunny rock much later

http://www.owlpages.com/owls/species.php?s=2270

•  Cranes: hundreds of squawking cranes were on the ground in the rice fields, a V-shaped flock flying down to join them.  They were almost prehistoric, all gangly and strange, but amazing

http://visit-western-spain.com/the-crane-grus-grus-in-extremadura/

•  Hen Harrier: the British couple we had see the day before had seen several.  We finally saw one flying over the rice fields

http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/RSPB_Hen_Harriers_breed_at_RSPB_Geltsdale.aspx?s_id=184396157

When Maria learned of our experience bird banding, she mentioned that every Friday, there was a grebe banding in Huelva, a large city about 45 minutes away.  She asked the main guy Luis if we could join them the following day, and he said yes!  Maria's friend Laura would be able to pick us up from the hotel in the morning, and we would get a ride back to El Rocio when it ended.  Sounded good to us.

After the tour and the yummy lunch we ate with Maria, Vanessa and I chilled on a park bench overlooking the dry lake.  Then we walked to the sewage area, which the British Chris and Linda had said would be a good birding spot, but we didn't see much.  As we walked back a half-hour later to catch the bus back to Matalascanas, whaddayaknow, we saw Chris and Linda!  We discussed what we each saw on the tour earlier, and then Chris said they were going for a walk on some of the sandy roads, and if we wanted to join them.  Why not?  We didn't have anything to do at the hotel, and birding with these interesting people would be fun.  And fun it was.  We talked about literature, birds, and where we and they had traveled before.  We saw some lifers too.   After two hours of walking, we needed to catch the bus.  So, we said goodbye to Linda and Chris, and headed back to the hotel.