The Changing Status of Steppe-Land Birds in the Lleida Plain of Catalonia

Abstract

The Lleida plain is a flat and dry region in Western Catalonia (NE Spain), at the eastern edge of the Ebro Valley depression. The central part of the area is now devoted to intensively irrigated farmland, but a surrounding belt of steppe and pseudo-steppe and low intensity farming, mainly occupied by winter cereal, olive trees and almond trees, remains. The area still hosts a rich community of steppe land birds. Some are dependent on low intensity dry cereal farming and fallow, such as the little bustard (Tetrax tetrax), Montagu’s harrier (Circus pygargus) and calandra lark (Melanocorypha calandra). Other, such as the pin-tailed sandgrouse (Pterocles alchata) and black-bellied sandgrouse (Pterocles orientalis) inhabit the few remaining large spots of fallow land, while the Dupont’s lark (Chersophilus duponti) and lesser short-toed lark (Alaudala rufescens) are both associated to the remaining patches of natural steppes or halophytic vegetation. The greater short-toed lark (Calandrella brachydactyla) and the European thick-knee (Burhinus oedicnemus) favour areas of little disturbed wastelands, fallow or ploughed land. Although more generalist, the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) or the European roller (Coracias garrulus) also find in these low intensity farming areas one of their last strongholds in Catalonia. The single remaining Iberian population of lesser grey shrike (Lanius minor), on the verge of extinction, is also located within these steppes. All these species experienced severe population declines during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. Strong opposition to the Segarra-Garrigues irrigation system, launched at the start of the twenty-first century and aiming to transform most of the remaining steppes of the Lleida plain into intensified irrigated crops, has boosted many conservation actions, which are reversing or halting the negative trends for some of these species. These actions include, among others, the declaration of eight Special Protection Areas (SPAs), the renting or acquisition and management of steppe-land and fallow land, the provision of nesting sites, the implementation of breeding programs to reintroduce or reinforce some populations, or the mitigation of power lines to reduce collision risk. Although there is room for some optimism, the persisting intensification of agriculture outside and inside the SPAs, and the industrial and urban development of the area are still of great concern. We need a change in the rural development concept, from one that values only economic services to one that values social and ecological services as well, if we want some room for steppe-land birds in the Lleida plain.