Our villa in Spain was close to a wide estuary, fringed with paddy fields of young rice, and where, so our friends who part own a local boat assured us, you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of flamingos, an irresistible photo opportunity. We left our fellow holiday-makers pool-side and drove the few miles to the wide shallow lagoons where the Spanish heat evaporated the sea water to leave a bed of sea-salt, which was “harvested” and piled into a large white mountain on the far side of the lagoons. It was here where we expected to find a hundreds of flamingos, balancing one-legged in the shallow pools. There was one solitary lonely flamingo. A Dutch couple that we met commented that just a few more would have been nice. We headed for a walk along the sandy spit that curved around the mouth of the estuary, a wide sandy beach, sole-burning hot if you stepped off the sea-dampened fringes, where the heat created mirages of non-existent lakes flowing onto the beach from the sea.
