After leaving the urban area, we walk into a landscape where the silence is only broken by the songs of the bird species the Ria Formosa hosts. We feel an immediate regret for not bringing our big photo camera. A pallet of colours fights for our attention. Bright white and ochre coloured sands, green and red sea weeds and saltwater plants. The bright blue sky, with every now and then a fluff of cloud is mirrored in the water.  Swathes of rustling reeds and grassy pieces of land and traditional wooden sluices complement the landscape between the saltpans. It is a fairylike bright and sunny winters day in the Algarve.

Ria Formosa Natural Park – birdwatching

We start our walk at the upcoming tide in the Ria Formosa. Slowly the water repossesses the wetlands and flows back into the pans. The first part of the track follows the Ecovia Algarviana, a bicycle route that runs from east to west through the Algarve following the southern coastline. Every now and then a sweating mountain biker passes. We cannot resist leaving the prescribed route and entering the small dikes along the saltpans. We are looking at the birds in the water; Flamingos, Storks, Spoonbills, Avocets, Black Winged Stilts, Eurasian Curlews. And of course many smaller birds like Larks, Sardinian Warblers, Goldfinches and many species we cannot determine. The winter wetlands are indeed a busy place.

Near Fonte Santa, a small tunnel below the train tracks leads us out of the Ria Formosa wetlands. Now we walk past the quiet hamlets situated a little more inland back towards Fuseta. Every now and again we will still get a beautiful view over the wetlands in all it’s astonishing colours until the water devours it all. This walk is a relatively easy one, everybody can manage it and it will leave you mesmerized by the beauty of the Eastern Algarve wetlands of the Ria Formosa. We have finished the day with a nice meal at the Fuseta harbour.