Compatibility study of the use of drones for management with the conservation of the avifauna of the Timanfaya National Park is the name of the pioneering manual that the Lanzarote national park has developed, the first of the Spanish Network of National Parks that wants to protect the conservation of birds and determine some "basic rules" to safeguard them and use drones safely.
The protocol, prepared by the ornithologist Gustavo Tejera and the environmentalist Yaiza Domínguez, proposes several guidelines such as that the pilot and the recording assistant must always have an ornithologist, that the drone "never descends vertically" - since it can be confused with prey - and that the duration of the flights is always less than thirteen minutes, since the interactions of the birds "skyrocket" once that time has elapsed.
On the other hand, Tejera, together with the environmentalist Alejandro Delgado, has analyzed the impact of 134 authorized drone flights in Lanzarote. Their conclusions will be presented in a scientific poster next December at the congress of the Spanish Ornithological Society.
Beyond the beauty of its geological forms and colors, the Lanzarote national park "hides in its entrails" a fascinating biodiversity.
Here, 30 different species of birds feed, reproduce and transit. Pelagic birds such as Bulwer's petrel or the Cory's shearwater, which develop their lives in the open sea and only touch land to nest. The steppe birds that live on the edges of the park, in Caldera Blanca, Risco Negro or the plains of Yaiza, such as the stone curlew, the lesser short-toed lark or the Canary Islands houbara. Small passerines such as the trumpeter finch, the Dartford warbler or the ubiquitous Berthelot's pipit frequent the fruit trees and sandy areas.
In Timanfaya live coastal and wading birds such as the yellow-legged gull and the Kentish plover, birds of prey such as the Egyptian vulture, an endangered species that in 2022 returned to breed in the park after twenty years without any chicks prospering, and the eastern Canary barn owl (coruja), which "is disappearing", warned the ornithologist, due to run-overs and the pressure of some human activities that are carried out without sufficient knowledge of the environment.
It is surprising to know that in this eminently geological park live almost 300 species of vascular plants and grow seven species of ferns, some in the deepest crack of the badlands such as the black spleenwort.
The biologist Rosa Betancort showed us the "unknown" flora of this "unexpected garden": the halophilic plants of Baja del Cochino perfectly adapted to living with high salinity such as sea grapes, the sweet tabaibal whose latex was formerly used as chewing gum, the bitter tabaiba with a toxic latex that was formerly used to fish at low tide, the herbaceous plants that grow in Montaña de Mazo such as the white salty plant that has a delicate down on its leaves that reflects excess sunlight or the glasswort with which soap was made in the 18th century, the fig trees, the vineyards, the guava trees and the carob tree in the cultivated areas or the more than 90 species of lichens described as ramalina, whose appearance of turgid lettuce is enhanced after rain.
"Plant colonization is one of the most fascinating events in the national park," said the biologist, and depends on the location of the land, the height, the type of substrate and the dispersive capacity of each species. The seed of the tabaiba explodes to jump as far as possible. That of the introduced vinagrera (calcosa) has wings. Other seeds of invasive plants arrive attached to the wheels of vehicles and the soles of our shoes, which is why it is so important to control the margins of the national park roads.
