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Basque Country nature reserve at risk from Guggenheim plans | Planet Attractions
     



Basque Country nature reserve at risk from Guggenheim plans

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.






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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Basque Country nature reserve at risk from Guggenheim plans | Planet Attractions


Basque Country nature reserve at risk from Guggenheim plans

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.






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).

More from The Guardian


 



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