Lake Frouxeira
Lake Frouxeira is one of the natural jewels from Valdoviño. It's a wetland of great environmental value near to the Frouxeira Beach. That relevance is due to the large number of birds that live there.
This importance is reflected in the statement of the lake and beach as Ramsar area, Birds Special Protection Area (ZEPA) and Place of Community Importance (LIC Costa Ártabra).
The lake is almost rectangular (length of 1.700 meters, width of 500 meters) and it receives water from Vilar and Castro rivers and rain contributions.
The average depth does not exceed five feet, althought there's deeper areas like the "Pozo do cura". The increase in water fees in some seasons flooded lands near the lagoon and traditionally the neighbors opened the lake to avoid the floods, but mechanical opening is currently prohibited by the administration.
For its part the dunes are mostly mobile and remain active.
Fauna
The greatest interest of Frouxeira is the birds. Among the many species that can be seen in the lagoon are coots, seagulls, plovers, godwits, common teals, mallards, cormorants, herons and hawks.
Some are sedentary, they spend here all the year, and migrating, stopping to rest in the lake for a few weeks, a journey that leads from the west coast of southern Africa or the Iberian Peninsula to their breeding grounds, in northern Europe. According to calculations by the Galician Natural History Society, sometimes made stops at A Frouxeira up to 5,000 birds, a spectacle of nature, occurred mainly between late April and late May.
Scientific names: Anguilla anguilla, Psetta maxima, Hyla arborea, Rana temporaria, Pelophylax perezi, Salamandra salamandra, Bufo bufo, Bufo calamita, Coronella and Natrix, Vipera seoani, Lutra lutra, Vulpes vulpes, Meles meles, Arvicola sapidus, Microtus agrestis, Sus scrofa, fulica atra, Anas strepera, Larus ridibundus, Calidris alpina, Calidris alba, Charadrius hiaticula, Limosa limosa, Anas crecca, Anas platyrhynchos, Phalacrocorax carbo and Ardea purpurea.
