Introduction
Volunteer work is fun and especially when you can go out an learn new things from experts! I’d seen various notices from an organisation during 2015 that looked interesting to me. The idea was to go out and monitor amphibians and their habitat. The organisation is called Red Cambera and, convieniently, is based in a village near where I live. Many of their activities are centered around the Saja-Besaya Natural Park. Now, I’m not actually sure if it is a provincial park, it isn’t one on national level, but I do not know how Spain orgainises the various levels (e.g. national, provincial, regional etc.). Anyway, it is the largest park here in Cantabria.

Saja-Besaya (named after two rivers, the Saja River runs through the village I live) is a park but not an untouchable piece of wilderness. One of the main things that is done in the park is maintaining livestock (mostly horses and cattle). These are led into the hills in spring and brought back down in autumn. Basically the livestock can roam freely. When driving around you often come across cows in the middle of the road for example. This means that in a sense the landscape is man-managed, but it has been so for hundreds of years.
There is ample space for fauna with wolves and bears being the those at the top of the food chain. However, there are all sorts of small mammals, from river otters to stoats etc. The bird life is also quite diverse, key species being various woodpeckers, vultures, ravens etc.

Saja-Besaya Natural Park – 16.04.16
So, Red Cambera has various activities, one of which is monitoring amphibians in the park. The organisation has installed ramps (in & out) into various drinking troughs throughout the park (for the free roaming livestock). Over the past 3-4 years they have been monitoring amphibian activity in these troughs in spring and autumn. They visit the troughs numerous times during each season to see how the situation is developing.
The day that I went was the second time out this spring, 2 weeks earlier I’d been kept at home due to ill kids. There will be two more dates, one late May and one early June, hopefully I can make one of the two.

We met up in the morning in the main village in the region (Cabezón de la Sal) and split in to two groups. Each would go by car and take a different route towards a ermita (little church on top of one of the hills) where we would have lunch.

The group I was split into was to take the high route. There were three volunteers (me included) and two people from the organisation piled into a little 4WD. This type of car was needed, as we’d mostly be driving on rugged dirt tracks (permit required to drive them). We headed off in the rain …
Up we went into the hills, we had to go all the way up to the Puerto de Palombera (1200m – the highest point in the park is around 2000m) … we turned onto the first dirt track just after the pass with full expectations. We’d passed plenty of drinking troughs already, but none had been adjusted by the organisation. After 3-4 turns up we ran into a big bank of snow, completely blocking the track. There was no way around it and no possibility of removing the snow (would cause the snow from higher up to tumble down). We had to turn around and go a different route, but it meant we’d have to skip 3 (of the 6 for our route) troughs! The other route had 9 in total. Two weeks prior there had been even more snow, but there was hope that it would all be gone.

So back down the hills we went, this time turning in to Barcena Mayor. Just past the village on a dirt track was our first trough … there were plenty of tadpoles swimming about and it soon became clear that they were two distinct species: Rana temporaria (Common Frog) and Alytes obstetricans (Midwife Toad). After a little searching we saw 3 Lissotriton helveticus (Palmate Newt), 2 males and one female. Not bad for our first trough (still in the rain).

Our second and third trough were less exciting, well, there were only Rana temporaria tadpoles in the second and we couldn’t spot anything in the third. However, the third was near the ermita and there were little streams coming out of the ground there and they were filled to the brim with more Common Frog tadpoles.
The other group had come up through Ucieda and they’d also spotted an Ichthyosaura alpestris (Alpine Newt). This is the route we’d take back, but we didn’t stop to have a look at those newts, it is close by my house so maybe I’ll go by myself in the near future.
Overall the result had been good for the time of year (and water temperatures). The organisation was pleased with what we had seen.

The sun came out as we started munching away at some sandwiches provided by the oraganisation. It had been a great morning, I had learnt a lot and seen a new species (Rana temporaria).

I’d love to go again and see how the locations develop. Joining some of their other projects may be a tad difficult at the moment (due to the kids), but we’ll see …
As this is a fairly new project for the organisation they’re also seeing how they can do more things with amphibians in the future. One option would be for volunteers to go by set points on a regular basis and monitor developments there … hmm, similar to Projecto Lepides and I’d sure be up for it (there’s a drinking trough here in Casar filled with amphibians in the spring).
Furthermore, they are working on a book on amphibians for Cantabria … cannot wait till that is complete and to buy it!

Summary
– Lissotriton helveticus.
– Rana temporaria (larva only).
– Alytes obstetricans (larva only).

Species year total — 4 (2015 – 5).

Further Reading
– Red Cambera web site (in Spanish).
– A couple of links to information about the park, here and here (both in Spanish).
– My sightings for the trip Observation.org.