PT051
Serra do Caldeirão


Country/territory: Portugal

IBA criteria met: B2, C6 (2002)
For more information about IBA criteria, please click here

Area: 70,445 ha

Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves
IBA conservation status
Year of assessment (most recent) State (condition) Pressure (threat) Response (action)
2005 not assessed low not assessed
For more information about IBA monitoring, please click here


Site description (2002 baseline)
Extensive greywache-schist mountainous massif with soft and round forms where are born several watercourses of Algarve's Lee and Weather side, and of Alentejo. This site is covered by extensive cork-oak groves. At shadowy parts, complex and developed arborescent thickets, with arbutus groves and heaths, are present; and at sunny sides, we find diverses simplify shrubs, prevailing cistus. Areas with soft relief hold human occupation, reduced since 60's, with associate subsistence agricultural patches, mainly at occidental and oriental extremes. The site is acrossed by River Odeolouca, its valley bounds Algarve and Alentejo regions, and presents linear human occupation concentrated in dispersed nucleus.

Key biodiversity
The extensive well-preserved cork-oak groves are essential for breeding stability of Hieraaetus fasciatus. These habitats with low human intervention are also propitious for Circaetus gallicus that presents here a representative nucleus, completing those of Monchique mountains and Espinhaço do Cão (Weather side mountains). It is also to relate the presence of Bubo bubo that nests in hillsides with dense thickets or in rocky outcrops.


Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Serra do Caldeirão (Portugal). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/serra-do-caldeirão-iba-portugal on 23/11/2024.