Coto Donana 1999 trip report (1 Viewer)

We spent two days of a Portugal holiday across the Spanish border on this fantastic reserve. Some of the sites are hyperlinked again and would benefit from going into Birdtours.co.uk again to get more information. If you go to the South western part of Spain do try and spend a couple of days there. There are a few places to stay so accomodation shouldn't be too hard to organise.

Report supplied by birdtours.co.uk
The Coto de Doñana National Park,
Doñana is Spain's principle wetland area. Access is much restricted but there are areas on the periphery where a representative selection of all of the birds can be seen:
John Jennings takes up the story:
"My missus and I spent 2 days in the Coto Doñana earlier this year. (May '99). There are a few spots that you can visit without using a 4x4 vehicle. El Rocio is a brilliant place.
It is a fantastic village in its own right and all the roads are sand roads with tethers for horses, just like a Spanish cowboy town. There is a hide on the side of a lake with huge numbers of birds in attendance. Also there is a large reserve with hides and a visitors centre you can walk around on the other side of the road. You can also drive past the visitor centre, here, towards the palace where there are woodland walks.
We saw a Griffon Vulture here. Further down the road, towards Matalascana's on the coast, is another reserve on the right. We didn't get much chance to look around here as the heavens opened up big time and it would have been senseless to try. It looked a useful place though. We stayed in Villamanrique for a night and the road between El Rocio and Villamanrique was full of Black Kite at first which then made way for Booted Eagle in numbers."

"From here there is another place to visit and that is the Jose Antonio Vaverde visitors centre but I warn you that you are not allowed to view the reserve from outside the visitors centre. There is a huge plate glass window to view from which hinders distant and side on views. Nevertheless Marbled duck are here and quite a few other birds and the birds en-route are numerous. There is no way I can explain the route as we had trouble finding it but one piece of info that may help is to find your way to the Hato Ranon airport. The centre isn't too far from there. There are other places as well but you would never fit them in a day. At El Rocio is an Imperial Eagle site but you would need a 4x4 to reach it or try for a fair walk instead."
Birds seen at the principle sites:
· El Rocio (Doñana national parque)
· Jose Antonio Valverde centre
· Villamanrique area

Regards
John J

Hi John,

Sounds excellent. I'm actually going to Spain in three weeks and will visit Donana. My main target is Extremadura though, more specifically Monfrague Park for its abundant raptors, and the plains for the steppe birds. A friend of mine who's been before said if you think Donana is good then Monfrague is off the scale!

Have you been to that part of Spain?

Edward

Edward

Did you read my other trip report for the Costa del Sol. It might make interesting reading for you.

I am going to Spain on May 10th so will be extremely interested in your report when you get back. If you can give me some site locations as well then that will be extremely helpful.

I hope you have a great time. BTW where are you actually going to?

We're doing a Tour of Spain. Landing in Malaga, driving up to Madrid to pick up a friend and then driving west to Extremadura. Probably staying in Trujillo for a night or two and hope to see both bustards, both sandgrouse, Roller, an assortment of raptors and passerines before heading south to Donana, Brazo del Este and then Tarifa, before heading back to Malaga. It'll be a lot of driving but I don't know when I'l go again to Spain so we're going to make the most of it.

I have never been to Trujillo so I will be more than interested on what you see and where you see it. I might even be able to go there when we are over there in May.