Turismo de Galicia

There are dozens of species of waterbirds that, while travelling, make a stop there lasting for a few days or a few hours. The rivers and estuaries are good places to visit: the Rías de Ribadeo and Foz, the Ría de Ortigueira, the Ría do Burgo, the Ponteceso estuary on the Costa da Morte, the entire wetland area surrounding O Grove and the Miño estuary in A Guarda are outstanding places to observe wading birds such as eurasian curlews, whimbrels, dunlins, sanderlings, common ringed plovers, grey plovers, common redshanks, bar-tailed godwits and black-tailed godwits, among others.

The wetlands are also home to other species such as the western marsh harrier in migration or dispersed about. Special attention should be paid to rushes and reedbeds.

As in July, in mountain areas the concentrations of raptors, which look to take advantage of fleeting food sources, can be spectacular. In the Macizo Central around the highest mountains of Os Ancares and Montes de Cervantes, Pena Trevinca and Serra do Eixe, O Courel and in the Serra do Suído there is a significant concentration of these birds: from common kestrels to common vultures and cinereous vultures.

A temporary phenomenon of extraordinary interest stars the lesser kestrel. It is a small raptor linked to human settlements and farm fields which is frequent in certain parts of the Iberian Peninsula but does not breed in Galicia. Seriously threatened just one decade ago, in recent years it has moved north after nesting to feed and gain weight from the insects that can still be found in the northernmost areas. They are here for a few short weeks and depart again southward to spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa. We must pay close attention. They can be seen anywhere, although it is in the Serra dos Ancares and Montes de Cervantes or especially in A Veiga do Pumar in A Terra Chá where there are more chances that they will be seen.