There are many places along Costa da Morte that offer the possibility of enjoying nature for their landscape, geology, astronomy, and flora and fauna. Several areas exist with excellent conditions for birdwatching. Of all of these, the Insua Bay is perhaps one of the best for spotting this kind of fauna.
The final stretch of the river Anllóns, between the Ponteceso bridge and where its mouth in the Corme and Laxe ría, is a large estuary some 5 km long. This area is bordered by a tongue of sand or sandbar, which stretches from the base of Monte Branco towards the south-west for some 1500 m, leaving only a narrow channel between the river and the sea.
The bay occupies an area of approximately 300 hectares, in which the amount of water depends on the tide. At high tide, the water floods the entire flat, while at low tide only a channel of water remains in the middle. Above the high water mark, a series of vegetation formations can be seen: sedgeland, reedbeds, meadows and small riverside woods of willow and alder.
The entire complex is an extensive area of great ecological interest with different habitats in which a great variety of flora and fauna live that have adapted to these different ecosystems, from the wettest area, the foreshore, to the driest, the dunes. Among the creatures that live here of particular note is a large colony of birds, which populates this wide area either permanently or occasionally.
Thanks to the constant, rigorous work over the years of the ornithologist Luis Rabuñal Patiño, some 300 species of birds have been catalogued and recorded in this area, a figure that exceeds any other natural area in Galicia. Some of these species have not been seen anywhere else on the Iberian Peninsula.
During the winter months, the concentration of birds from the Anatidae and Limicolae families on the Anllóns estuary is a very important natural event for all those interested in ornithology. Among the most prevalent species are mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), pintails (Anas acuta), shovelers (Spatula clypeata), grey herons (Arcea cinerea), little egrets (Egretta garcetta), cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo e aristotelis), common curlews (Numenius arquata) and Kentish plovers (Charandrius alexandrinus). There are also several species of seagulls and wetland passerines.
All visitors to this important natural site should know that they are entering a protected area in which they should act with the greatest respect so as to affect the life of all these birds as little as possible and use only the signed paths and existing hides.
