What you can see on the Alfaro webcams
One camera is fixed next to a nest high on the church, close enough to watch the birds arrive, build and raise their young. The other looks down on the town from the hillside on its edge, over the roofs to the twin towers of San Miguel and the plain of the Ebro beyond.
Alfaro and the towers of San Miguel from the hillside
From the hillside on the edge of Alfaro, this camera of the Government of La Rioja looks out over the town towards the Ebro valley. In the foreground a dry, grassy hill is topped by a white lookout reached by a path with a wooden rail. Beyond it spreads a sea of roofs, and near the middle rise the twin brick towers of the collegiate church of San Miguel, the largest church in La Rioja and the building where hundreds of storks nest every spring. Behind the town lie the irrigated orchards and the riverside woods of the Ebro, with low mountains on the horizon. In the breeding season storks fly back and forth over these roofs all day, although from here they are only specks. It is a still image with the date and time.
A stork's nest on the roof of San Miguel, Alfaro
This camera of the Government of La Rioja's environment department is fixed beside a white stork's nest high on the collegiate church of San Miguel in Alfaro; its caption, "Cimborrio Trasera", places it at the back of the church's lantern tower. The nest fills the lower half of the picture, a broad platform of sticks and earth built up over many seasons, with old brick walls and tiled roofs behind. The church holds more than 120 nests, the largest colony of white storks in the world on a single building. From late winter, when the birds come back and repair their nests, through to early summer, when the young stand on the rim flapping their wings, there is nearly always something to watch; by autumn the nest is often empty. It plays here as a time-lapse of the day.
The storks of San Miguel
San Miguel, built over more than a century from the 16th century onwards, is the largest church in La Rioja, and its broad cornices, towers and lanterns have become a city of nests: more than 120 of them, with some 500 storks in the breeding season, the largest colony of white storks in the world on a single building. Storks rarely nest in colonies, which is what makes Alfaro so unusual. They feed in the irrigated orchards around the town and in the riverside woods of the Sotos de Alfaro, a nature reserve along the Ebro. The best view from the ground is from the Plaza de España, beside the church.
When to watch Alfaro
Alfaro is one hour ahead of the UK and Ireland. The storks start coming back to repair their nests in late winter, lay their eggs in spring, and in early summer the young stand in the nest practising their wingbeats before they fly. From late summer the nests empty, although more and more storks now spend the winter in Spain. The town camera is best in the soft light of morning and evening.
Around Alfaro
Tudela, the second town of Navarre, is 14 miles (22 km) down the Ebro, with the semi-desert of the Bardenas Reales beyond it. Upstream to the west lies Calahorra, a Roman city in origin, like Alfaro itself, which began as Graccurris.
Getting to Alfaro
Bilbao airport, with flights from the UK and Ireland, is about 131 miles (211 km) away by road; the airports of Zaragoza and Pamplona are closer.
