Source: All information that you can read in this page, is from Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y Reto Demográfico del Gobierno de España. www.miteco.gob.es
Mallard
Anas platyrhynchos
Bird of about 55-60 centimetres. The female is brown and the male in the nuptial season has a bright green neck and head and a brown breast. It lives in open water, along riverbanks and in general in all types of aquatic vegetation, its population increasing in autumn due to northern European birds. Sometimes in January, broods have been seen, but it is more common for them to appear at the beginning of March, with about a dozen individuals. In summer they go to the stubble fields at dusk to feed and return to the lagoon at dawn.
Marbled Duck
Marmaronetta angustirostris
Unlike most ducks, the male and female of the brown teal do not differ greatly. The male lacks bright and showy colours in its plumage and during the moulting season has a very similar appearance to the one it has during the mating season. It is not a very gregarious bird, with hiding habits, which lives in the vicinity of lagoons and permanent water tables, with large amounts of marsh vegetation.
Marmot
Marmota marmota
Their habitat is conditioned by their two basic needs: eating grass and making galleries and burrows. If this soft ground has rocks, the better, under them they will dig their galleries and serve as a burrow where there will always be an adult member of the colony watching the sky and everything that happens within a radius of 250 metres. When temperatures drop in winter, they adjust their metabolism as much as necessary to stay alive. Marmots disappeared a long time ago, but were introduced to the northern slopes by French hunters around the 1950s, from where they passed to Spain at an unknown date.
Meadow Pipit
Anthus pratensis
It is a solitary bird, although in autumn and winter it becomes more gregarious. It feeds on insects, arachnids, worms and seeds. It makes its nests on the ground, generally in open areas sheltered by sparse vegetation. It lays 3 to 5 eggs, which are incubated by the female from April to July. It is found in grasslands, moorlands, meadows, crops, dunes, estuaries, wet meadows and heaths. It is a protected species.
Melodious Warbler
Hippolais polyglotta
It prefers medium-sized open scrubland and breeds in large groups in the hedges that separate fields and along roadsides, in the undergrowth of hills and in forest clearings and edges; it can also be seen in gardens and urban parks. It feeds on all types of insects, although it prefers those without hard shells, such as aphids, caterpillars, larvae and small snails. In autumn it completes its diet with blackberries and berries.
Merlin
Falco columbarius
It is a small falcon weighing less than 250 grams. It inhabits steppes, farmland and sparsely dense cleared woodland. It captures and feeds on all types of birds, rodents and some insects. It almost always breeds at ground level or in small depressions sheltered by trees. Occasionally it takes advantage of abandoned nests of corvids and other raptors and insects on rocky ledges. Although it does not breed in Spain, it is a wintering bird throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
Mistle Thrush
Turdus viscivorus
It prefers to settle in forest edges and thinned stands, although they can be found in sufficient numbers in mountain forests, whether coniferous or broadleaved. It feeds in meadows near the trees. Many specimens come to winter in the Peninsula and show erratic behaviour. Its diet is very varied. A great consumer of berries and other fruits, it does not disdain insects, which it consumes in large quantities, especially during the breeding season. Its fondness for eating the slimy balls of mistletoe in winter makes it the main transmitter of this plant.
Montagu’s Harrier
Circus pigargus
It is a small harrier, weighing less than half a kilo. It hunts on heaths and grasslands where it finds rodents and small birds on which it feeds. It completes its diet with amphibians and reptiles and occasionally with large orthoptera. It nests at ground level, often in cereal fields or on small promontories. Between August and October it migrates to Africa, and does not return until the end of March. It is very common and is distributed throughout the peninsula.
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