Temperatures rise and harden living conditions for all inhabitants of Doñana, including us, humans. With a bit of luck maximum temperatures stay below 30° and without it they may go over 40° El Rocío Marshes, if they keep some water at all, becomes one of the most attractive spots in the Park, good numbers of herons, storks, […]
The first barn swallows are back from Africa, what they eat during these first cold weeks of the year is a mystery to me because the insects are still very scarce. Yet temperatures are usually pleasant compared to northern Spain and northern countries in Europe, and we enjoy abundant sunny days with excellent visibility, ideal […]
Autumn has just started and is now in October when the rainy season usually starts, with them many thousand anatidae, cranes, waders and other wildfowl come to Doñana after a long journey from northern Europe. Among them stand out for their number around 50,000 geese that choose Doñana as their wintering area each year. The almost magical […]
Summer progresses and with it living conditions in the park for animals and plants becomes even harder. Mammal activity concentrates in the first and last hours of the day. The bellowing of the stags can be clearly heard early in the morning, even from El Rocío; in the woods these animals become less shy and […]
The Guadalquivir River and the Atlantic Ocean shaped the old bay located at the mouth of the river and created the region known today as Doñana. The sediments carried by the river and the sands pushed inland by the sea currents and winds filled the shallow waters of the bay to build a territory made […]
Antlions are insects belonging to the order Neuroptera. They are not true ants, although their small larvae that can reach 1 cm in length may remind them. They are fierce predators of ants and other small insects that share with them the sandy soils in which they live. This small creatures, looking like something out of a […]
Look who was giving us access to the Park last June 1st. A male Lynx yawning quietly after drinking in the waters that still run under the Ajolí Bridge, next to El Rocío. He looked at us a few times as if he cared a hoot that we were there enjoying the sighting. While nightingales and […]
This bizarre nocturnal birds with huge mouths, large moustaches and sorrowful eyes begin to return from their winter quarters in Africa towards middle of April, although most of them are coming back now in the first half of May. Occasionally we come across one of them on passage in the marshes, like the european nightjar on […]
You have to fine tune your eyesight to locate one of these strange creatures; perched on a leaf of a mastic tree, the bark of a cork tree or a flower of a rockrose. It is now in spring when small insects like these populate our countryside; most go unnoticed for many of us, but if you’re lucky […]
Spring announces its near arrival to Doñana, or perhaps we should say that it is already here; day by day green is taken the rest of the chromatic scale, especially in the pine woods, where the bright green grass covers it all, except in areas where trees have been allowed to grow too close each […]
A cold and sunny winter day, next to a reed bed in the rice fields of Doñana, a light breeze that is not even able to swing the elegant stems of the bulrush. Its tight cylinders of brown seeds have slowly and gradually fell apart in the last few months; rare is the one that […]
Winter brings new birds to settle our marshes and inspire our forests, it also brings some unpleasant days in which we all find difficult, including them, the inhabitants of right, to enjoy its beauty, but winter also makes us the best gift every year, its light, that light… Stephen and his father, like good amateur […]
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