Bahía de Cadiz Natural Park

Overview
The Bahía de Cadiz Natural Park is an area consisting of marshes, salt pans, freshwater lakes, sandy beaches and tidal inlets.  It covers roughly 10,500ha.  

Walking
Calle Coghen in San Fernando has a park office.  There you will find information on the park, including maps and walks. There are four signposted walks as detailed down below. The best time to see the park is from September to May, at low tide. If you have them, take some binoculars for birdwatching.

Sendero Pinar de Algaida is a 12km walk (round trip).  This follows the San Pedro river and through the Pinar de la Algaida, a forest of stone pines near Puerto Real. It passes a marshland area before skirting around the saltpan of the Salina de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados.

Sendero Dolores is a 3½km circular route.  It begins at the Salina Nuestra Señora de los Dolores and follows a wall on the riverbank. The path loops round the rest of the saltpans to return to the starting point.

Sendero Tres Amigos-Río Arillo is a 4½km walk. If you go south the path will take you along the marshland to a bird hide where you can view the marismas.  Alternatively north goes around the marsh and along the Arillo river. The best time for this walk is autumn, when the marshlands are full of migrating birds.

Sendero Punta Boquerón is a 3km linear walk to the Punta de Boquerón Natural Monument from Camposoto beach southeast of San Fernando.

Sightseeing
Around the reserve are the towns of San Fernando, Puerto Real and Chiciana de la Frontera.

Geology
Estuaries, lagoons, beaches, dunes and cliffs. 

Animals/Birds
The park is an important breeding site for avocets, and spoonbills amongst others.  It also has considerable colonies of little terns. The park stopping place for migrating birds during winter. Grey herons and flamingoes can also be seen here. The bay region is rich in shellfish and fish.

The pine forest Pinar de Algaida is home to many species of birds.  These include hoopoes, meadow pipits, white wagtails and goldfinches.

Plants
The Pinar de la Algaida forest consists predominantly of umbrella pines.  The salt marshes vegetation is home to saltwort and glasswort, sea lavender or the rare cynomorium coccineum.

On the dunes, you’ll find marram grass, spiny rushes, Russian thistles, sea rocket and sea holly.