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The Urdaibai Bird Center has been cutely styled like an international airport terminal, with multilingual boards marked Arrivals and Departures, and a raised observation platform resembling an air traffic control tower. Through a roof-mounted telescope I watch various avian species landing or taking off from little floating archipelagos on the adjoining lagoon.
Tom Anstey | Planet Attractions | 12 Nov 2024
The Urdaibai Bird Center has been cutely styled like an international airport terminal, with multilingual boards marked Arrivals and Departures, and a raised observation platform resembling an air traffic control tower. Through a roof-mounted telescope I watch various avian species landing or taking off from little floating archipelagos on the adjoining lagoon.
I am not a birder so I don’t know what they’re called, though I do recognise the (grey) heron by its pterodactyl flight profile.
Rowan Hardman, the centre’s environmental educator, points out lapwings, greenshanks, bank swallows. Her favourites are the spoonbills: “They’re big, white and dramatic, but also calm and static, always sleeping or preening. They reflect how this marsh has become a peaceful haven for them.”
This quiet corner of northern Spain, at the coastal edge of the Basque Country, is now a regular stopover on southward migration routes from the UK and Scandinavia to sub-Saharan Africa (then back again come spring).
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