The main reason for today's visit to La Janda was to find and photograph Common Cranes, birds that stay in this area to winter. As soon as I arrived I saw a huge flock of around 120 of these elegant birds.
In the whole area of La Janda that I visited today I counted at least 400 Cranes. Most of the time they were gathering in a field, sometimes there were smaller groups of four flying individuals soon soon to join the flock.
It was a sunny but very windy day. I took all the photos sitting in the car, which served as a kind of hide. Birds can be quite confident with cars. Unfortunately, the strong wind today made photographing through the open window really uncomfortable as it blew a lot of sand into the car.
Without the strong wind I would have seen more birds today, but I still managed to spot almost 40 different species. Many of them in big flocks, as the photos below clearly illustrate.
Small songbird were less active due to the wind, but I took some beautiful photos of the ever present Stonechat, one of the most colourful birds out there.
When I first visited this area, I spotted a Western Swamphen. Today I was lucky to see it again, more or less at the same place. I think this bird has a very prehistoric look.
Very close to that spot I saw a Cormorant, busy diving in an attempt to find food.
A few hundred metres further I saw something hanging down a power line. It was one of the saddest things I have seen in my young birding career: a poor bird had got stuck with its foot between one of the wires that has been fixed around the power line and had certainly died a slow and terrifying death. I am not sure what species it was, but it looked like a gull to me.
Following the straight road next to the stream, several kilometres long, I felt like I was on a birding safari, driving slowly and observing the birds on both sides of the track. During the time I spent on this track, I only met one car, so it clearly is a quiet place. Among the birds I saw were: Spanish Sparrow, Northern Lapwing, Common Snipe and different types of Egret.
Several times during my visit I noticed that a flock of foraging birds took to the air accompanied by loud alarming calls. It soon became clear what had caused the panic: a hunting bird of prey! On one occasion I saw a Marsh Harrier and about an hour later in a different place I observed a Buzzard chasing some Jackdaws.
Remembering my first visit to this place and the bad condition of the tracks in this area, I decided to take another route at the end of the long straight road along one of the canals. An information board next to this different track didn't make me expect much improvement.
Be warned: unless you have a 4x4 you will only be able to drive on these tracks in first gear, being very careful all the time, or you will damage your car. I would not recommend visiting this area on foot either, due to its vast dimensions.
I observed a few more birds of prey, like Peregrine Falcon, Griffon Vulture, Kestrel and another Marsh Harrier.
When I finally got to a road in decent conditions, I noticed I had come quite close to another interesting spot near the Celemin River so I decided to go and have a look there too. As you can see in the photos below it is also an ideal site for water birds.
Almost at the end of my journey I ran into another hunting Marsh Harrier. It's always a huge pleasure to observe them flying up and down in the fields looking for prey down on the ground.
I shot all the photos during this journey using the back button focusing technique and it seems I am having fewer photos out of focus than before. Just as on my previous trip I used the cRaw file format and again I am satisfied with the quality.
While I was driving away from the last stop of this day's excursion I still remembered the unfortunate gull high up in the power line. Unfortunately, it was not the only sad sight of the day. I noticed a little songbird lying in the middle of the road and thought I had seen one of its legs moving. I immediately pulled over to see if I could help the poor thing. Much to my despair, all help came too late. It was a Chiffchaff and I could see it had died only recently. It was bleeding but I am not sure about what caused its death. It would not surprise me if it had been hit by a fast driving car when trying to reach the other side of the road.
Barely one kilometre further down the same road, I witnessed another heart-breaking scene. Another small songbird, this time a male Stonechat, was lying dead in the middle of the road. Next to him, a female Stonechat was wondering what had happened and looking at the dead little body, not realising she was in extreme danger of getting hit by another car herself.
Unfortunately, dozens and dozens of birds die this way every single day. Birds simply don't have enough time to react when a fast driving car suddenly appears. What is it that explains people's needs to arrive at their destination in such a rush? Driving so fast allows them to win only insignificant minutes.
I drove home with mixed feelings after contemplating so much avian beauty contrasting with the cruelties in nature caused by either nature itself or the ever-damaging human race.
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