Formentera 65 Birds and 20 Routes

My First Book

Formentera, 10 March 2026

Publishing my first book has been one of those moments you experience slowly and, I won’t deny it, with a certain fear about the day of making it public. And that day has arrived.

It hasn’t been an easy journey at times but, once finished, I have a pleasant and intense feeling of having come full circle. A project that had been on my mind for years, that I often considered impossible, has finally found its way to become a reality in print and in digital format.

This book, Formentera: 65 Birds and 20 Routes, is born from a different way of looking at Formentera. A perspective that aims to complement the island’s well-known image of beaches with something more unhurried, more inward-looking, more connected to the land and to the life that inhabits it all year round. Birds, paths, silence and observation are the true common threads running through this guide.

It is not a technical or academic book. It is an accessible guide designed for people who want to discover lesser-known aspects and places in Formentera and to put a face to some of the bird species we can find on the island throughout the year.
This article is not just a presentation of the book, but also an honest explanation of how and why I published it. Of the work behind it, the doubts, the financial limitations, the decisions made and, above all, the key role that artificial intelligence has played in turning a project that was only an idea for years into a reality today.

What will you find in the book?

This book is designed to be enjoyed slowly—to flip through, to take with you on a walk, or to open before heading out. It is not a technical guide, nor does it aim to overwhelm with data, but rather to accompany the reader in discovering a lesser-known Formentera.

Each of the 65 birds featured in the book includes two illustrations. The first shows the bird perched, as if we were lucky enough to encounter it at close range, allowing us to observe in detail its shape, colors and most distinctive features. The second illustration depicts the same bird in flight—an image that, for me, is essential to understanding its behavior and its real presence in the island’s landscape.

For each species, you will find its common name, its scientific name and also the name by which it is known in Formentera—something I felt was important in order to connect the content with the traditional way these birds have been referred to on the island. Alongside the illustrations, I include clear and accessible information about the bird’s description, its diet and the habitat it occupies in Formentera.

As for the 20 walking routes, each one is designed to help you discover the island on foot, far from the noise and beach tourism. Each route includes a name, a full-page illustration of a point along the walk and a brief description to help you understand its setting and the kind of experience it offers.

In addition, each route includes a QR code that allows you to open it directly in Google Maps, with all the directions needed to follow it easily from your mobile phone. To complete the experience, each itinerary also features a selection of birds you might be able to observe along the way, thus linking the walk with the life that inhabits the surrounding environment.

Available in 7 languages

From the very beginning, I was clear that this book needed to be accessible to as many people as possible. Formentera is a small island, but with enormous international reach, and for that reason the book will be available in seven languages:

Spanish, Catalan, English, Italian, German, French and Portuguese—the same languages in which I offer content on my website.

This decision has involved considerable additional effort, but it is also a way of remaining consistent with the audience that has been following my work for years, both through this blog and on my social media channels.

Where can you buy the book?

As of today, the book is available in several bookshops and online:

• Librería Tur (Formentera)
• Librería Alpe (Formentera)
• Librería Hipérbole (Ibiza town)

And for those who do not live on the islands, or who prefer to shop online, the book is also available through Amazon, both in print and Kindle format. You can purchase it through the Amazon branch in your country of residence, making the process as simple as possible regardless of the language in which you choose to read the book.

👉 Click here to buy your copy on Amazon.co.uk
👉 Click here to buy your copy on Amazon.es

It is also available to read free of charge at the Formentera Municipal Library, where several copies are available to the public.

Years in my head

This book is not a recent idea. I had been thinking about it for years, precisely because I have always felt that, compared to the absolute prominence of the beaches, the rest of Formentera’s natural elements remain in the background.

I am not an ornithologist or a bird specialist, but the world of birds has always fascinated me. Observing them—even when I struggle to identify them—understanding when they appear and why they disappear, is part of the way I relate to my surroundings. This book was born from that curiosity and my desire to share it.

On the other hand, walking around Formentera is one of my greatest pleasures. While I don’t know every single path, I know many of them from having walked them repeatedly, and that is why I have created the routes in this guide so that anyone can easily follow them from their own mobile phone.

Financially impossible

For a long time, this project did not move forward for one very simple reason: money.
The budget required to create the 150 illustrations that make up the book, together with the cost of translations into so many languages, was far beyond my ability to invest.

Investing such a large sum in a niche, educational project like this—one with very little chance of even simply recovering the investment—was not a realistic option. In fact, it would have been a fairly quick way to move even closer to financial ruin. So for years, I chose the most sensible option: to put the idea on hold.

Honesty and transparency

Everything changed with the arrival of artificial intelligence. Image generation and automatic translation have, in a very short time, reached a very high level of quality, and that has been decisive for this project.

I want to be very clear before anyone decides to buy the book:

👉 I did not draw any of the images in the book; they were generated using artificial intelligence, following my instructions.

I know that the use of this technology generates controversy and very different opinions. In my case, I see it as a tool that is evolving at an astonishing speed and that, in just three years of being accessible to the general public, has especially revolutionized the audiovisual world.

The images and texts in this book have been reviewed and validated by people close to me, including expert ornithologists who verified the content before its final publication. Likewise, the different language versions have been reviewed by native speakers of each respective language.

My reality is simple: without the use of this technology, this educational project would not have been possible. The only alternative would have been to seek grants from a public administration or private entity to finance part of the book. And since I am not one to ask for handouts, for a long time I preferred to forget about the project. Until now.

The combination of artificial intelligence and self-publishing on Amazon has allowed me to turn that idea into reality, to make it something tangible and to put it up for sale for anyone curious about the birds and paths of Formentera. And I want anyone who buys the book to do so knowing exactly how it was created.

Months of work

Although today I can show you the finished book, I must say that the process has been long and demanding. It has taken months of work gathering information, selecting species, designing routes, reviewing texts, correcting details and constantly making decisions. Most of the time it was solitary work, done in moments carved out of daily life, but always with the feeling of building something worthwhile.

It has not been a linear journey. There have been moments of blockage, doubt and reconsideration. But there have also been many hours of enjoyment—thinking about how to present the island with the reader in mind and confirming that this project made sense, at least to me.

My wish

Personally, I believe the result is good. I believe the effort and time invested are reflected in the content and in the book as a whole, and I would like to think that this guide will spark curiosity about aspects of our island’s nature that previously went unnoticed by many.

Curiosity about birds.
Curiosity about the island’s interior.
Curiosity about a less photographed Formentera.

I hope this book encourages both residents and visitors to look at the island and its birds a little more closely. If that happens, this entire journey will have been worthwhile. In any case, I must confess that I have greatly enjoyed the process—and when you enjoy what you do, it stops feeling like work.

👉 Click here to buy your copy on Amazon.co.uk
👉 Click here to buy your copy on Amazon.es