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Alcornocales Natural Park Andalucia
Los Alcornocales Natural Park
Covers an area of 170,025 hectares, stands between the provinces of Cadiz and Malaga and is the world’s largest cork oak forest.
Made up of a series of low mountain ranges which contain more sandstone than limestone, unlike the neighbouring Sierra de Grazalema, where the reverse is true, and, as the third largest park in Andalusia, Los Alcornocales is one of the region’s most important protected areas, stretching as far as the Straits of Gibraltar. Its interior houses Cortes de la Frontera National Game Reserve. Rhododendrons, ferns and laurels grow in the shade. In the south are the canutos, river valleys in which species of vegetation from the tertiary period still survive.
The park is an important centre for ecological, rural and educational tourism due to its immense archaeological, cultural, historical and monumental value. It successfully combines compact patches of protected cork and gall oaks with cork extraction, big game and cattle farming.
Towns and Villages
Cadiz: Alcala de los Gazules, Algar, Algeciras, Arcos de la Frontera, Benaocaz, Castellar de la Frontera, El Bosque, Jerez de la Frontera, Los Barrios, Medina Sidonia, Tarifa, Ubrique, Prado del Rey and Jimena de la Frontera.
Flora
The park boasts the planet’s largest collection of cork oaks as well as gall oaks, wild olives, evergreen oaks and carob trees, not to mention the river valley forests and copses with their alders and ashes. Species of vegetation from the tertiary period create a wealth of flora in the southern part, consisting of rhododendrons, alders, laurels, hazels, hollies, Ruscus aculeatus and several types of fern, some of which are of enormous interest to botanists.
The Psilotum nudum, a veritable botanical jewel unique in the northern hemisphere, is the highlight among the ferns.
Other species to be found here are small palms, elms, sarsaparillas, white poplars, Pyrenees oak, heather, madronnos and hard myrtles
Link to pictures of Spring Flowers
Fauna
A veritable paradise for birds of prey: one of the largest collections of tawny vultures, owls, peregrine falcons, kestrels, Egyptian vultures, goshawks, sparrow hawks, and several varieties of eagle, such as the snake eagle, Hieratus fasciatus, Hieratus pennatus, Aquila heliaca and golden eagle. Granivorous species include the robin, wren and tit; while insectivores such as the nightingale, the bee-eater, the swallow and the swift are also to be found. The fauna inhabiting the river valleys features the aquatic blackbird, the kingfisher and the sap martin, among others.
Europe’s most southerly concentration of deer and roe make up the park’s hoofed mammal contingent, while predators include foxes, stags, wild boar, genets, badgers, otters, polecats, weasels, mountain cats and the peninsula’s largest colony of mongooses.
This is also a migratory zone visited by thousands of birds from all over Europe
