El Hito Saline Lagoon Reserve

A saline wetland in La Mancha

The Laguna de El Hito Nature Reserve protects a shallow, salt-rich lagoon lying between the municipalities of El Hito and Montalbo, in the province of Cuenca. Its water level rises and falls through the year, leaving pale saline margins and salt-tolerant vegetation that make it one of the most distinctive inland wetlands of Spain.

Birdlife through the year

The lagoon is a key resting and feeding site on the flyway: large gatherings of common cranes spend the winter here, alongside ducks, waders and birds of prey. During the spring and autumn passage, migrating flocks stop to refuel, while steppe birds use the surrounding cereal plains.

Restoration and conservation

Between 2021 and 2024 the Fundación Global Nature ran the LIFE El Hito project to improve the wetland's condition, recover priority habitats and support steppe and aquatic birds. The camera, set up with the Diputación de Cuenca, opens a public window onto this restored landscape.

What the camera shows

The view spans the broad sheet of water toward the low hills of the horizon, with the flat shoreline of the La Mancha steppe beyond. Scan the surface and the margins for flocks of waterbirds resting, feeding or taking off.