Common Cranes (Grus grus)

Cranes can be seen all along the coast and in towns and villages here in southern Spain. There are red ones, blue, yellow, and of course needless to say if I have to have one near me I'd go for a green one!
The cranes I want to talk about are the beautiful, very graceful large, grey birds that fly in flocks and pick the Costa de la Luz as one of their winter homes.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Common Cranes (Grus grus) migrate from Scandinavia, Germany and Poland to the Iberian peninsular and North Africa. It's a long flight through Germany, France and to Spain with many stops along the way. Cranes are communal birds and live, feed, breed and migrate together, calling out to each other in flight in the same way geese do. It's one of my favourite sounds in late autumn over Cadiz province, when I hear their call and see the first groups arriving. In this area, hundreds of Cranes arrive in October to winter in La Janda to escape the cold and darkness of the northern winter months. Other roosts can be found in Morocco and along a good part of the North African coast. At this time of the year there is also a huge concentration of birds on the rolling steppe and plains of Extremadura. Usually the birds find food on the rich stubble fields that held maize, cotton and sunflowers, as well as taking frogs, mice, voles and other winter tit-bits. Unfortunately the reduction of bird and small mammal populations is partly due to intensive farming practices and efficient harvest systems employed on many farms in most EU countries.

Windmills at La Janda, Costa de la Luz, Spain

Take the new wind farm near Facinas for example. Apart from the obvious disturbance they create, they are quite inefficient at generating electricity only paying land owners a construction fee and annual rental agreement for the siting of such 'white elephants'.

I don't accept that bird collisions with windmill blades cause high numbers of fatalities. Every man-made structure in the modern world has a bearing on wildlife and the number one source of bird deaths is by far the motorcar. High-tension electrical power-cables are in themselves are huge contributors to the deaths of our avian friends. Just think about the vast numbers of wires that criss-cross the countryside cause many more deaths and injuries to birds. Wires of such are quite simply very difficult for flying birds to see. Birds generally see the windmills and can certainly feel the pulling force of the blades as they turn, but who would agree to site such large numbers of turbines right on one of the busiest bird migration routes on Earth?

Stephen Daly, Andalucian Guides.