Passion for animals
My name is José Carlos Carrascal Hernández, 40 years old, I have a degree in Environmental Sciences from the USAL in 2007, and a Master in Protected Natural Areas from the UAM in 2008. One of my main passions is to be in contact with nature and I love to spend time wildlife watching in Extremadura. Since I was a kid, I started “devouring” books, videos and everything related to nature… I remember a collection of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with which I learned a lot of what I know today.
However, the important thing was to experiment, whenever I could I took the bike and got lost on the roads of my village to investigate its forests, plains, streams, lagoons… If someone came with me, great, but if I didn’t leave just until the night brought me back.
I decided to create this page during the COVID time, several years ago… At the beginning it was a section of https://topfishing.net/ but due to its success I separated it some time ago. Then I decided to create a different entire web, exclusively dedicated to wildlife watching. Since October, 2024 I also decided to dedicate myself professionally to this, and start working as a nature guide.
Will I be able to dedicate my whole life to it? Time will tell, but I have no lack of passion, no desire to undertake, and I think I have enough knowledge and experience to be able to offer a great service. Do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in hiring a Birding or nature GUIDE, I will try to offer you an authentic, unique and personalized experience, according to your preferences.
Wildlife Watching, Why Extremadura?
My village is Lumbrales, a small town in the west of Salamanca, located in the Arribes del Duero. A town I am very proud of, also located in a beautiful area that, fortunately or unfortunately, is very uninhabited. I encourage you all to visit it one day. I lived here until I was 18 and of course I still go there quite often. Later on, the university stage arrived and I moved to Salamanca. There, among other very good people, I met my good friend Manuel from Cáceres, who is passionate about sport fishing and nature just like me.
I’ll remember all my life that first day I went to Extremadura to fish for black bass with him. We went to a small reservoir, near Monfragüe, where I was lucky enough to see for the first time the imperial eagle. On the way (we went a few times) we also always saw deer, fallow deer, black vultures, other eagles… and many more animals that I was not fortunate enough to see frequently. Since then, I started to visit Extremadura quite often, taking advantage of bridges and holidays…
And little by little I fell in love with its dehesas, forests, steppes, fluvial ecosystems… where I could observe a multitude of fauna species.
I would like to share with all of you a few lines about each of the animals that live here, its main ecosystems and areas of greatest faunal value. I have been lucky enough to see almost all the animals here, and I hope that all this information will help you to enjoy the wildlife watching in Extremadura as I have.
