The Nature - Pine, Flamingos, Peacocks - Oh my!

Part of the reason for staying in El Rocio (aka the middle of nowhere with horses) was to visit Donana National Park. Unfortunately, going into the main area of the park is severely restricted. Part of this is due to the substantial bird habitat and the area being one of the last refuges for the Spanish Lynx. One can only go into this part of the part by signing up for a jeep tour, that costs 25+ euros. Since we figured being constrained to the jeep and just getting out for a few key photo-ops would being annoying - the closest we got to the core area of the park was this.















Not far from El Rocio however there is La Rocina visitor center which is the gateway to an adjacent part of the national park that is well known as a bird watchers paradise. The sport (?) of birdwatching is taken seriously at this park. There are little huts at various locations near wetland areas and the paths to these huts are enclosed to limit the noise of arriving at the huts so as not to scare the birds. Shhhh be vewy, vewy quiet (an Elmer Fudd reference there :-).















In some of the huts there were some serious birdwatchers and photographers. A pair of binoculars were brought on the trip, but SOMEONE forgot them ;-) But, there were not too many birds that day anyway, so it wasn't too much of a loss. The rest of the park was characterized by even-aged (and highly managed) pine forest - I think pinus pinea or something like that. The park also included a shrubland with lavender, rosamary and sage bushes - probably very beautiful when in bloom. Not so bad in winter either...














On the last walk through El Rocio we returned to the wetland area bordering the town and at last saw the birds that the guide book promised would be there - Flamingos! Now they were not as pink as I would have expected (apparently the color of their feathers is directly related to their diet) but it was still really cool to watch them (with binoculars this time :-).












Lastly, this is a pic of a beautiful peacock from the garden at Real Alcazar in Sevilla. There were at least a dozen of them wandering around - amazing colors here.