{"id":47,"date":"2008-01-27T13:16:59","date_gmt":"2008-01-27T11:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/photos-and-places\/birding-in-catalonia-part-1\/"},"modified":"2008-01-27T13:16:59","modified_gmt":"2008-01-27T11:16:59","slug":"birding-in-catalonia-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/photos-and-places\/birding-in-catalonia-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Birding in Catalonia &#8211; Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><strong>Birding in Catalonia \u2013 Part 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Catalonia, or Catalunya, in the north-east corner of Spain, is the main overland gateway into the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe. A glance at the statistics will tell us that around 7 million people inhabit its 32,091 km\u00b2, at an average density of 190 persons per km\u00b2, and that it is an industrialised region with a coastline largely developed to accommodate mass tourism.<br \/>\nNot precisely a beacon for the foreign birder, or so it would seem. But then there are the other statistics: the new breeding bird Atlas of Catalonia reveals 232 species of breeding birds &#8211; more than any other region of a comparable size anywhere else in Spain &#8211; inhabiting its numerous and varied biotopes, including wetlands of International importance, high mountains, Mediterranean type sierras &amp; lowlands, rocky coasts &amp; headlands, and steppes.<br \/>\nCatalonia`s Mediterranean coastline, for example, has 3 very interesting wetland areas, the most important of which is undoubtedly the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/sites-and-itineraries\/the-ebro-delta\/birding-in-the-ebro-delta.html\" title=\"ebro delta south itinerary\">Ebro Delta<\/a>. This must be the star attraction for any visiting birder wanting to see gulls and terns, including the rare Slender-billed and Audouin`s Gulls, Gull-billed and Caspian Terns, along with a wide variety of herons, ducks and waders such as Squacco Heron, Little Bittern, Glossy Ibis, Great White Egret, Red-crested Pochard, Collared Pratincole, Kentish Plover, migrating Marsh Sandpipers and Temminck`s Stints and a few miscellaneous items such as Purple Gallinule, Greater Flamingo and Savi`s Warbler. Furthermore, its impressive list of wintering and migratory birds means that it`s not to be forsaken at any time of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/sites-and-itineraries\/llobregat-delta-and-garraf\/birding-in-the-llobregat-delta-and-garraf.html\" title=\"Llobregat delta itinerary\">Llobregat delta<\/a>, on the very edge of Barcelona airport, also presents itself, although on a much smaller scale, as an interesting proposition for a 2 or 3 hour visit, with excellent hides overlooking scrapes which never fail to turn out rarities year after year. Last but not least there is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/sites-and-itineraries\/aiguamolls-emporda\/birding-in-aiguamolls-natural-park.html\" title=\"Aiguamolls birding itinerary\">Aiguamolls de l`Empord\u00e0<\/a> in the north of the region, intensively managed to enhance its wildlife interest and well placed to receive those more easterly migrants which rarely make landfall elsewhere along the coast. It`s also something of a Mecca for spring crake hunters (Spotted, Little and Baillon`s).<\/p>\n<p>to be continued&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Birding in Catalonia \u2013 Part 1 &nbsp; Catalonia, or Catalunya, in the north-east corner of Spain, is the main overland gateway into the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe. A glance at the statistics will tell us that around 7 million people inhabit its 32,091 km\u00b2, at an average density of 190 persons per [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-and-places"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-L","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}