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About Us:

Spanish Birdwatching Tours Specialist

Birding Tours Spain is offered by Oretani Wildlife is a custom tour operator offering guided birding and wildlife tours in the province of Ciudad Real in central Spain. Although a relatively unknown area, it has a rich and wide variety of habitats including mountains, wetlands, and steppe, and a spectacular diversity of species for the discerning bird enthusiast in each.

These habitats are all within a 40km radius of our guesthouse Casa Oretani allowing you to spend more time birding and less time travelling. Casa Oretani is a comfortable guest house with a garden and pool where Imperial Eagles and vultures regularly fly over. From spring onwards at night the sounds of Scops Owls in the park outside the door, the nightingales near the stream, and the haunting call of Stone Curlews lets you know that you have arrived at a choice area for birding.

In the evenings, during your free time, we can show you where you can walk 15 minutes to find our resident Eagle Owls and Red-necked Nightjar. Or just cross the road for the Scops Owls in the park.

It is the only region in Spain with two national parks. The P.N. Tablas de Daimiel and its surrounding wetlands offer incredible opportunities to see many residents and migratory species, both waders, and passerines. Flamingoes can be seen year-round, and in spring and autumn many migrants stop due to the location on the flyway of their route, and in winter the cranes visit in their thousands in Spain birding tours.

The P.N. de Cabañeros is a pristine Mediterranean forest, home to the second-largest colony of Cinereous Vultures in Europe and vast numbers of Griffin vultures. It is also a bastion of the majestic Spanish Imperial Eagle and numerous other birds of prey.

The volcanic steppe of the Campo de Calatrava provides excellent opportunities to see Great and Little Bustard, Sandgrouse, Stone Curlew, and Calandra Lark and in the dehesas to the south, again Spanish Imperial Eagles abound.

Due to the ideal location of our guest accommodation, these three distinct habitats are all within a half-hour drive. There are many quiet backroads and tracks of which we have excellent local knowledge allowing you to discover the area in a more personal and exclusive manner. Driving through the Manchegan countryside, with its stunning scenery, is a relaxing and satisfying experience. All this coupled with great cuisine and fine wines, the wonderful Manchegan cheese, majestic landscapes, rich culture, and history, allows us to give you a birding experience like no other.

Our Guides:

Mike Grimes is from Ireland and has a degree in Earth Sciences. He has lived in Castilla-La Mancha since 1998 and has intimate knowledge of the best birding sites of the region. He has worked as a guide at a UNESCO site, Skellig Michael, given courses in wildlife photography and guiding, and freelances with other tour operators requiring an English-speaking guide. He speaks English and Spanish.

Tours:

Birding La Mancha Tour

Spain 6 Days

Starting From EUR 1,050 / per person

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Wildlife:

Short-toed Snake Eagle

Cabañeros National Park, the Alcudia Valley and the Sierra Morena are where these can be seen. They generally tend to arrive April to May and leave in September to October.

Little Owl

Scattered about the fields are piles of rocks where the farmers have cleared them. These are always excellent vantage points for the diurnal Little Owls that perch on them looking for prey. We know one pile that 90% of the time they can be seen. Don't get too close though or they'll start bobbing up and down and disappear.

Pin-tailed Sandgrouse

During the hot summer months they gather at water holes where they fill their feathers with water for their young. They can be seen on the steppe in the fields or crossing dirt roads looking for water.

Stone Curlew

Watch that rock until it moves. That's how you find Stone Curlews. More easily heard at night due to their shrill calls, during the day in rocky fields it takes a keen eye to spot that big yellow eye hiding amongst the red Manchegan soil.

White-headed Duck

Considered Endangered by the IUCN due to habitat loss and destruction, these comical blue-billed diving ducks can be be observed at any time of the year at close quarters in the Manchegan wetlands.

Booted Eagle

Near our guest house, Casa Oretani, we have a light morph pair that regularly fly over the village. They can also be found on the steppe and Cabañeros National Park. And the Tablas de Daimiel National Park. They can be found everywhere in fact.

Great Bustard

Nobles of the plains of the Campo de Calatrava Steppe. They really do know how to strut their stuff in their pre-nuptial displays. It's all just a matter of finding where they are impressing the ladies. With our tour, you will not be disappointed.

Flamingo

A year round resident at many of the wetlands where they can be seen in great numbers. When they take to the wing it is an impressive sight with their outstretched necks and legs and black and pink underwings.

Purple Gallinule

The Purple Gallinules of the Laguna de Navaseca are not shy, in fact they are quite the dandys who love to show off their wonderful iridescence. They are easily seen out of the reed beds feeding, and up to 17 have been seen in a single visit.

Spanish Imperial Eagle

With almost half of the Spanish population of Spanish Imperial Eagles in Castilla la Mancha, Ciudad Real has 83 and Toledo 125 specimens of this once near extinct species. They are regularly seen in Cabañeros National Park and on the steppe area. A resident pair can also be seen fly over our guest ghouse quite regularly. On seeing these examples of a wonderful conservation programme, one feels like taking a bow to their majestic size.

Conservation:

We don’t have any awards for conservation but we still do our bit. Our guest house, Casa Oretani, was built with remarkable insulating properties. We use solar panels to heat water and Aerothermic Heat Pumps for climate control in the house. These machines which use a renewable resource are an efficient method of heating the house in the winter and cooling in the summer.

We use small local restaurants in small villages which we feel helps provide employment in an area that has seen a large population drain over the years. Our packed lunches use local products and we hate plastic.

We don’t go where we shouldn’t. The national parks have strict rules regarding access and leaving paths. We respect these rules and understand that our clients do to.

And finally, it’s the wildlife that is most important for us. We don’t get too close. We don’t intrude on breeding sites. We don’t use recordings. We respect the environment that we visit. We see it as it should be and leave it as it was, or better if we can take home someone elses rubbish when we find it.

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