Lleida Plains – dry habitats full of life

Two panoramas of the Lleida plains in eastern Catalonia. Unlike my normal way of doing things (see ‘Nature and its Environment’), in this case the photographs are not mine.

The excellent wildlife photographer Jordi Bas, jovial and highly knowledgeable companion of previous professional and publishing adventures, has commissioned a number of panoramas for the Lleida Plains Interpretation Centre. Given the time of year, it was impossible to take fresh photographs for the project and so I ended up using photographs from Jordi’s extensive archive, which had been taken in different places at different times of year, in different lights, without any thought of future projects.

After a lot of work and a serious ‘make-over’, in the end I came up with two panoramas that – if you had no idea of the tricks and time involved in blending together almost a dozen photographs, taken in different places and at different times – you would think were just a single landscape. Obviously, you can’t expect to see the profusion of wildlife illustrated and integrated into the panorama all at once, or in any one place. Nevertheless, it does reflect the biological richness that these non-irrigated croplands in the Lleida Plain harbour, one of the most beautiful landscapes – and one of the most threatened – in Catalonia.