The large eagles prey on game all the year round; the smaller species chiefly on reptiles and small birds, secondarily on game. In winter the latter depart to Africa.
Falcons.—The smaller species are chiefly insectivorous—the Lesser Kestrel and Eleanora Falcon exclusively so. The Common Kestrel and Hobby also take small lizards and snakes. From the crop of one of the large and powerful Falcons (Falco punicus) which, when shot, was in the act of pursuing a Hare, we have taken nearly a score of Blindworms.
It is corroborative of the predominance of reptiles and insects in their diet, that so many of the raptores leave Spain almost entirely in winter. Both the Booted and Serpent-Eagles, Black Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Lesser Kestrel, and others, migrate at that season to Africa.
CHAPTER XXII.
BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME.
III.—By Lake and Lagoon.
Spain is not a land of lakes; the so-called lagoons are often mere accumulations of flood-water, the result of the winter's rains which occupy shallow basins, or swamp the low-lying lands. Many of these hybernal lagoons dry up entirely as the hot weather sets in; others remain in greatly reduced proportions, hidden, as a rule, amidst reeds and dense aquatic herbage.
Few Spanish lakes cover any considerable area, though the Lagunas de Janda, near Trafalgar, those of Fuentepiedra near Malaga, and the Albufera of Valencia, are exceptions.
The Laguna de Janda, an inland sea of yellow muddy water, surrounded by belts of sedge and cane-brake stretching away for miles, is a well-known wildfowl resort, abounding in winter with Grey Geese, ducks, and divers of many kinds, besides Snipe, Rails, Bitterns, and aquatic birds in all their varieties. The dry plateaux on the north are a notable resort of Little Bustard; and large bags of Quail and Golden Plover are there, at times, secured. But this is well-known ground, and having been described by others, we will only add that in spring Janda is noteworthy as one of the breeding-stations of the Crane (Grus communis), which still nests in some numbers amidst the vast area of reed-beds and thick swamp that lie towards Casa Vieja.