Current view: Text account
Site description (2002 baseline):
Site location and context
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.
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.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
There is not any management plan for nature conservation in Rede Natura 2000 proposed sites. Reduction of human occupation in 60's enabled the renaturalizaton of areas that have been intensively interventioned at the begining of XX century; this, associated with the dicrease of direct human pesecution, contribute to the stabilisation of Hieraaetus fasciatus population. However, alterations of land-use (from agriculture to forestry) are followed by disturbances in breeding territories during sensitive seansons. Forestry practices are mainly directed to wood and cork production, with mechanical non-selective intervention for shrub removal. It is necessary to control forestry and hunting activities, mainly during breeding season and to bound refuges at the sensitivest areas.
National SCI proposal Caldeirão (PTCON0057; 47286 ha contained by IBA); SCI proposal Barrocal (PTCON0049; 20864 ha contained by IBA)International SCI proposal Caldeirão; SCI proposal Barrocal
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 24/12/2024.
