Southeast Regional Park: A Complete Route Guide

Half an hour from the capital there is an oasis of biodiversity well known among Madrid residents for its proximity and the leisure opportunities it offers - and which is outside the busy life in the city. The Southeast Regional Park, a destination for cyclists and enthusiasts of other outdoor activities, can boast of hosting one of the most beautiful and diverse populations of birdlife in the entire Community of Madrid. The great attraction that birds feel towards this place is due to the variety of habitats and ecosystems, mostly aquatic.

This “corner” of more than 30,000 hectares was, in its day, a place completely altered by human activity, specifically the extraction of aggregates. However, the abandonment of the gravel pits and the passage of time caused the waters of the Manzanares and Jarama rivers to soon flood this place, which today has a completely different appearance and is home to species as beautiful as the purple heron.

Southeast Regional Park: Where to start?

Obviously it is practically impossible to visit the entire Regional Park in just one day, but you can visit many of the most interesting enclaves from an ornithological point of view.

To start you have to choose the best dates.  

The birds are known for their fantastic and impressive migratory journeys that they make to escape the cold or reach their breeding areas. Knowing this, it can be said that the months of March and April, when the movement of birds reveals some wintering birds and others in summer, are the best to get to know the winged life of the southeast of Madrid up close, although February and May can also surprise us. These are months when the birds begin to become active, look for a mate and the temperatures are pleasant.

A good starting point for the bird watcher is Velilla de San Antonio. The Jarama River passes through this Madrid town and in its surroundings there is a small lagoon complex resulting from extractive activity and which today is a mandatory stop within the park.  

The route begins next to a factory in Velilla and goes through the lagoons while the riverside forest accompanies us along the way. The tree surface is home to a shy group of birds known as woodpeckers. The sound of the wood makes the great woodpecker or the woodpecker reveal its presence and let us enjoy its colors. Turning your gaze towards the lagoons, the clumsy but elusive common swarm will not go unnoticed among the vegetation on the shore, a bird with very pretty blue plumage in which its striking carmine-colored beak stands out. More and more aquatic species, such as the common grebe, the great cormorant, the gray heron or the common coot, brighten an ecosystem that is still trying to recover.

The next stop is located downstream, in Rivas Vaciamadrid, right where the Manzanares and Jarama rivers meet. When taking the M-208 that leads there, there is another small lagoon right at the first roundabout on that same road, it is called Miralrrío. In it some egrets, egrets and the beautiful bittern can be seen along with numerous ducks such as the spoonbill. In spring, barn swallows, sapper martins and house martins feast on insects that can sometimes bother the observer, so the use of anti-mosquitoes is recommended.

In short, in this part of the Regional Park you will find many birds similar to those you could observe in a bird watching day in Doñana.

Water, once again the protagonist

In Rivas, we will take exit 19 of the A3 to take a dirt track that will lead us to the famous Soto de las Juntas, where Manzanares and Jarama become a single river.  

This enigmatic place stands out for its combination of habitats. On the banks of the river, large poplar trees shade the riverbed that flows strongly, while the surroundings are adorned with the taray forest, a typical species of aquatic ecosystems. Above the poplars you can see the enormous cuts in which the peregrine falcon lives, a small but elegant raptor that increasingly sees its populations more and more decimated.  

Meanwhile, a small wooden construction appears out of nowhere, an observatory that allows you to view the sheet of water. In it you can see one of the most beautiful spectacles in the world of birds, the courtship of the grebes. When the mating season arrives, these diving birds decorate their plumage with extravagant ornamental feathers that give both females and males a much more elegant appearance. It's the perfect outfit for a dance where timing can mean finding a partner to breed with.

Close relatives of the grebes but somewhat smaller are the black-necked grebes, which can be seen from the observatories with relative ease, although they are much less abundant than the enormous white storks that constantly fly over the park. The presence of these well-known birds is due to the fact that they have built their nests along the entire network of power lines in the park and even on the radio antennas, where in some points you can see more than 10 nests together. A whole colony of storks that sadly feed in the nearest landfills.  

Returning towards Rivas, you will find the Campillo Lagoon, an ideal place to stop along the way and have lunch while observing the wintering of black-headed and black-headed gulls and taking a look at the cliffs that run along the northern shore of the lagoon, where you can see some corvids such as the western jackdaw or chough. redbill In this place with picnic areas, the food is sure to taste much better.

We continue down the river

Following the course of the river once again, this time along the M-506, you reach San Martín de la Vega located in one of the most fertile plains in the Community of Madrid. Most of their crops are irrigated or flooded, which requires a system of canals and ditches that carry water to the crops. As a product of said agricultural activity there is a small ornithological reserve called Los Albardales which consists of a small temporary lagoon where a lot of birds come when the crops cause them to flood.

The shores of the lagoon, covered by typical wetland vegetation (reeds and reeds), are a refuge for many birds, some small, such as the cetia nightingale that provides the soundtrack to the reserve, and others somewhat larger, such as the common rockfish. or the cattle egret. Despite all this, the Albardales stand out for housing a small population of wading birds in the parts where the sheet of water barely covers a few centimeters. There, snipes, plovers and sandpipers take the opportunity to feed on the few invertebrates that today's insecticides leave alive.

It must be taken into account that this reserve within the Regional Park does not always have water and depends a lot on the farmers. If they decide to water a few weeks before or after, the water will take more or less time to flood the lagoon.

The small size of the reserve and its ease of travel give the visitor some time to explore another area of abandoned gravel pits and flood crops by car or on foot. On the way to Ciempozuelos the Soto Gutiérrez extends, a small hideaway of agricultural landscapes that goes unnoticed but where in the months before spring you can see large concentrations of lapwings and other waders.  

These two stops do not take much time, as they can be traveled by car and are relatively close to each other, although you will have to hurry before it gets dark.

Last stop, the reedbed

Continuing south but turning towards Chinchón and leaving the banks of the Jarama, we will find a wonderful place to spend the rest of the afternoon and even watch the sunset.  

At a deviation from the M-404 there is a dirt track that leads to the Laguna de San Juan Wildlife Refuge, in the municipality of Chinchón. This small protected space within the Southeast Regional Park is characterized by the density of its swamp vegetation. The reed has acquired such volume that many birds breed in the maze of reeds.

Hearing in this enclave is the main tool to detect the species. Many of them, such as the common warbler or the reed warbler, hide among the vegetation taking advantage of the color of their plumage and are only detected when they sing. They are species that you will hear but not see. Another example of this type of bird is the unicolor search, a small brown bird, very similar to the color of the reed, which hides taking advantage of its camouflage but reveals its presence with its unmistakable song.

Although it may seem a bit complicated to close our eyes and try to differentiate the songs of birds, it is a matter of time before we begin to identify one species or another when we have some practice.

The San Juan Lagoon is not just heard, the impressive flights of the marsh harriers arriving at the reedbed to spend the night are a real spectacle and during the breeding months when they are looking for a mate or territory you can see amazing acrobatics that seem more typical of an airplane than a raptor.

When it seems that the San Juan Lagoon is over, it can still surprise us even more; some flight of the beautiful purple heron carrying material for the nest can leave anyone with their mouths open. The rocks that accompany the lagoon are also a box of surprises where black wheatear and solitary rock thrush can be seen, although the most surprising of all arrives with the last light of the day, the king of the cut, the eagle owl, an impressive bird of prey. to close a perfect day.