The end of January marked an anniversary. 28 January to be precise. Twenty years since S’Albufera was declared a protected nature park, the first in the Balearics. The “Diario” celebrates this fact. Its reporter waxes lyrically, referring to the “intense peace” and “silence”. This is not a unique experience, it is one I have also sensed as have others.
Having Albufera as one’s back garden may bring with it certain disadvantages, well one – mosquitoes – but it affords many positives, not least in its proximity. Albufera is somewhere to escape to and to find tranquillity, though this can be disturbed by groups whose noise breaks not just the silence but also scares the wildlife into hiding. But one should not complain. Albufera is somewhere to be enjoyed and explored. The shame is perhaps that it is not explored by more, though there is an element of contradiction here. The more Albufera is invaded by humans, the less attractive it is to the fauna. Humans, as much as the man-made threats of the industrial estate, the power station, the nitrates from Muro and Sa Pobla farming and the possible change of use of the neighbouring Son Bosc finca, can be a liability in such an eco-system. Were they all whispering Attenboroughs or Bellamys creeping around, this would not be so, but they are not.
But Albufera cannot be preserved as a vast no-go area to homo sapiens. It would lose part of its purpose were it to be so, and it is the sheer vastness of the park that limits the impact of migrant humans, wings clipped so as not to spread from the designated routes or to explore deeply in numbers its less accessible parts.
The success of Albufera lies in the numbers that it is home to, some 3,000 species now, a doubling of aquatic birds since the late ‘80s. It is an achievement on a natural scale every bit as impressive (if that is the correct word) as the artificial scale of tourism infrastructure. Though the silence within its hugeness can be agoraphobic, in truth it is never silent. It is constant movement and never rests, and soon the small-hours calls of night birds will be joined by the cacophony of the frogs’ choruses, and the migrating formations will swoop and chatter over the tall reeds in daytime. Albufera is reserved for a minority in summer, the majority gathering as flocks and seal colonies on the beaches and pool-side. But perhaps that is how it should be, and how the wildlife prefers it to be.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “Unwritten”, Natasha Bedingfield. Today’s title – was going to use “The Sound of Silence” but remembered the newspaper cutting in the Albufera reception with a “sonido del silencio” headline. Too obvious. The chosen title is a jazz classic. Who?
Having Albufera as one’s back garden may bring with it certain disadvantages, well one – mosquitoes – but it affords many positives, not least in its proximity. Albufera is somewhere to escape to and to find tranquillity, though this can be disturbed by groups whose noise breaks not just the silence but also scares the wildlife into hiding. But one should not complain. Albufera is somewhere to be enjoyed and explored. The shame is perhaps that it is not explored by more, though there is an element of contradiction here. The more Albufera is invaded by humans, the less attractive it is to the fauna. Humans, as much as the man-made threats of the industrial estate, the power station, the nitrates from Muro and Sa Pobla farming and the possible change of use of the neighbouring Son Bosc finca, can be a liability in such an eco-system. Were they all whispering Attenboroughs or Bellamys creeping around, this would not be so, but they are not.
But Albufera cannot be preserved as a vast no-go area to homo sapiens. It would lose part of its purpose were it to be so, and it is the sheer vastness of the park that limits the impact of migrant humans, wings clipped so as not to spread from the designated routes or to explore deeply in numbers its less accessible parts.
The success of Albufera lies in the numbers that it is home to, some 3,000 species now, a doubling of aquatic birds since the late ‘80s. It is an achievement on a natural scale every bit as impressive (if that is the correct word) as the artificial scale of tourism infrastructure. Though the silence within its hugeness can be agoraphobic, in truth it is never silent. It is constant movement and never rests, and soon the small-hours calls of night birds will be joined by the cacophony of the frogs’ choruses, and the migrating formations will swoop and chatter over the tall reeds in daytime. Albufera is reserved for a minority in summer, the majority gathering as flocks and seal colonies on the beaches and pool-side. But perhaps that is how it should be, and how the wildlife prefers it to be.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “Unwritten”, Natasha Bedingfield. Today’s title – was going to use “The Sound of Silence” but remembered the newspaper cutting in the Albufera reception with a “sonido del silencio” headline. Too obvious. The chosen title is a jazz classic. Who?
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