Pitillas

At dawn in late October the lagoon below Pitillas turns copper, reflecting cereal stubble and the first frost on the vines. From the single-storey bird hide you can pick out twenty-odd species before the sun clears the Moncayo ridge: red-crested pochard, great crested grebe, the occasional osprey loafing on a post. Someone will already have claimed the corner stool with a thermos; the rest stand, binoculars braced against the wooden slit. It feels less like a nature reserve than a farm shed that happens to overlook 140 hectares of water – which, in Navarra’s Middle Zone, is exactly what it is.

A village that ends where the plains begin

Pitillas sits at 350 m above sea level, high enough to catch a breeze yet low enough for the summer heat to pool in the streets. The old centre is a five-minute walk from edge to edge: stone houses with timber balconies, the 16th-century church of San Pedro, a bar that opens onto the single plaza. There is no supermarket, only a cramped ultramarinos that stocks UHT milk, tinned tomatoes and the almond pastries known as fardelejos. If you need cash, the nearest ATM is ten kilometres away in Tafalla; if you need petrol, fill up before you leave Pamplona.

What the village does have is space. Beyond the last row of houses the wheat lands open out in a shallow bowl bounded by low sierras. In April the fields are striped green and yellow; by July they have bleached to the colour of pale ale. The lagoon lies three kilometres south, reached by a farm track so rutted that most visitors drive even though the walk takes less than thirty minutes. Cyclists use the same lane, dodging the agricultural traffic that still dictates the daily rhythm: tractors at seven, grain lorries at five, silence by nine when the swallows settle under the eaves.

Birds, wind and the absence of facilities

The reserve has no visitor centre, no café, no shop selling postcards of glossy ibis. A brown sign points down the track, an earth car park big enough for a dozen cars, then the hide: breeze-block walls, corrugated roof, a bench. Bring binoculars or you will spend the afternoon squinting at distant ripples. Bring layers too; the wind across the water can slice ten degrees off the temperature recorded in the village. On still days the lagoon smells of damp straw and fermenting algae; after heavy rain the paths turn slick as soap.

Winter is the marquee season. Between November and February the water level rises and the bird list lengthens: ring-billed gull, black-necked grebe, hen harrier quartering the reeds. Spring brings waders in breeding plumage, but also clouds of midges and the first earnest heat. Summer is best left to the hardcore – both birds and watchers – though the village fiestas at the end of June provide a handy diversion if the glare off the water becomes unbearable.

What to do when the birds are elsewhere

If the lagoon is quiet, the human landscape still repays a wander. A signed rural loop strikes east towards the hamlet of Guerinda, crossing irrigation channels where nightingales sing in May. The track is dead flat, shadeless, and shared with the occasional combine harvester; set off early and carry water. A shorter option is to circle the village walls – yes, there were once walls – and pick out the coats of arms carved above doorways: a plough here, a bunch of grapes there, the insignia of families who made money from grain and lost it elsewhere.

Food options are limited but honest. The bar in the plaza grills local lamb over vine cuttings and pours Navarra rosado by the glass. Fardelejos, the diamond-shaped almond pastries, are fried to order and arrive too hot to handle; they travel badly, so eat them on the spot. If you are self-catering, stock up in Tafalla where the Saturday market sells vegetables, cheese and the air-dried peppers that flavour regional stews. Pitillas itself has no restaurants, no Sunday brunch, no craft-gin pop-ups; what you see is what you get.

Getting here – and why you might share the road with storks

The simplest route is to fly into Zaragoza with Ryanair or easyJet, collect a hire car and head north on the A-68 for forty minutes. From Bilbao or Biarritz the drive is longer but motorway-heavy; allow two and a half hours from either airport. Public transport exists in theory – a twice-daily bus from Pamplona to Tafalla, then a local service that meanders through the villages – yet the lagoon turn-off is still three kilometres from the nearest stop, so a vehicle is all but essential.

Once arrived, you will share the lane with more than tractors. White storks commute between the lagoon and their rooftop nests in Olite; spotless starlings gather on the telephone wires like musical notation. On windy afternoons the air smells of damp earth and diesel, an oddly comforting blend that reminds you this is a working landscape rather than a museum.

A half-day that works better as punctuation

Pitillas is not a destination for a long weekend unless your idea of bliss is watching water levels fluctuate. Treat it as a comma in a wider sentence: morning in the village bakery, lagoon until lunch, then fifteen minutes up the road to Olite for the Royal Palace and a proper meal. The palace tour takes ninety minutes and includes a walk along the crenellated walls that frame the same wheat plains you have just left. From its towers you can pick out the dark line of tamarisk that marks the lagoon, and decide whether to return for the evening flight of the greylag geese.

Stay overnight only if you like your nights silent. The nearest accommodation is a handful of rural B&Bs and the small hotel in Olite; Pitillas itself shuts down by ten. What you gain is dawn light over water, mist rising off the reeds, and the knowledge that, for once, the loudest sound is a spoonbill clacking its bill in the shallows. Bring a coat, even in May. And fill the tank before you arrive – the next petrol station is thirty kilometres away, and the birds will not wait.