Welcome
Welcome to the Virtual Tour of the Huerta Grande Visitor Centre, located in the Los Alcornocales and El Estrecho Nature Reserves in the province of Cadiz. Here you’ll be able to discover the treasures of this Nature Reserve, which is part of the Network of Protected Natural Areas of Andalusia (RENPA).
At the centre you’ll find a reception area where visitors are welcomed, a gift shop where you have the opportunity to purchase products connected with the surrounding area, and a zone with information about the Network of Protected Natural Areas of Andalusia (RENPA), all together in a central space. The building also has a room for meetings, exhibitions and events, which is also where a video on the treasures of the Natural Area is screened.
The tour of the Huerta Grande Visitor Centre is a journey of discovery that takes you through the El Estrecho and Los Alcornocales Nature Reserves. It has two main aims: to take a stroll and explore the main landscapes, and to observe and learn about migratory birds.
Huerta Grande is located between the El Estrecho and Los Alcornocales Nature Reserves, and is a key site at the provincial level. At the Visitor Centre you can learn about the major landscape features, and one of nature's most fascinating phenomena: migrations.
Furthermore, Huerta Grande was used as a barracks for spies and soldiers in the early years of the Second World War, housing Italians and Germans who were focusing all their attention on the nearby rock of Gibraltar, a British territory. In the second half of the 20th century it was the residence of military governors, and served as a military prison for General Milán del Bosch, one of those involved in the attempted coup d'état in 1981.
In these links you can find more information about this Protected Natural Area with downloadable material such as trails, opening hours, how to get there, map with all the facilities for public use, etc.
Huerta Grande Visitor Center: lajunta.es/3ozpt
Los Alcornocales Natural Park: lajunta.es/3sq8k
Natural Park del estrecho: lajunta.es/3sq8l
Complete your visit with ecotourism experiences with local companies. You can consult the offer in the following link: ecoturismoandaluz.com
For activities aimed at the educational community, associations of people with functional diversity and local population, you can access through the link: reservatuvisita.ecoturismoandaluz.com
Landscapes: The cliffs and the seabed
In these rooms you'll learn more about the landscapes of Campo de Gibraltar and the Straits of Gibraltar. The gateway to the Mediterranean and its people and cultures. Sail over its waters, and dive down beneath them. Discover the huge diversity of organisms that escape our notice.
Get closer to the coasts of Africa and Europe. Take a walk through the forests that form on the coastal mountain ranges, along the waterways. See how the environment and the landscape have changed over the years. A vast range of landscapes lie submerged under the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The highest part corresponds to an area that is exposed at low tide, with pools teeming with life. Walls of solid rock provide shelter for a multitude of animals and plants that cling to on to avoid being swept away by the waves and currents. With their towering vertical rock walls, the cliffs are one of the most spectacular features of the coastline.
Beaches can be divided into two zones: one is the lower part, subject to the waves and the tides. The other is the upper area, which is normally dry, and only floods during storms and very high tides. The upper limit of the beach coincides with the base of the cliffs on rocky coasts, or with the first embryo dunes where the coastline is flat and sandy.
The prevailing winds on each coast and the specific shape of the coastline determine the type of dune that will form. Dunes have a key role to play on the coast, serving as sand reserves for the natural regeneration of beaches after storms. These sands are home to a variety of plant and animal life adapted to the strong winds, the salinity, and the movement of the sand.
Building the landscape and the water cycle
Humans are either directly or indirectly involved in the origin of most landscapes, sometimes even in their creation, and always in their permanence. Those where living conditions are most favourable, which are the most densely populated, are also the most profoundly transformed: forest has been cleared to make way for arable land and pastures for livestock, creating agricultural landscapes; in other places, trees have been planted to create forests to be exploited for timber or cork. And a long etc.
The history of the Straits of Gibraltar is one of the constant comings and goings of travellers between the two continents, and between the two seas. From the first Neolithic settlements until the present day, peoples and cities have left their particular mark on the landscape.
The mountain ranges of the Straits form a great wall that separates the Atlantic from the Mediterranean. The moisture-laden westerly winds from the Atlantic bring rain. The easterly winds from the Mediterranean are drier, and release the water they carry in the form of fog. In the mid and lower sections, reaching almost to the mouth of the river, riverside forests protect the river banks, which are covered with tall trees and a great deal of scrub. They have an extremely important role to play, as they serve as shelter for a multitude of animal and plants.
Coastal mountain ranges
In the more clayey flat lands at the foot of the rocky sandstone elevations, known as bujeos, a multitude of plants sprout with the arrival of the first autumn rains, after spending the summer in the form of seeds or bulbs.
The best wild olive groves are concentrated in areas of countryside and bujeos. These places resist being converted into grazing or agricultural land, becoming true islands of forest, and there are many in the countryside in the province of Cadiz. The European olive is a wild variety that bears fruit in the autumn. Vast numbers of migratory birds take full advantage, recharging their batteries with the nutrient rich olives before continuing on their way.
The cork oaks form one of the most typical landscapes of the coastal mountains of the Straits. A dense undergrowth of shrubs and ferns enhances the groves of cork oak. Wild olive trees are generally found around the bujeos, while near rivers and in shadier more humid areas Portuguese oaks and other trees predominate. Cork is the bark of the cork oak tree; it serves as insulation against the high temperature and the direct effect of flame on the trunk and branches. The cork is extracted every nine years between June and August.
Locally, the gullies through which the permanent streams run and the forests that grow along their banks are called “canutos”. The specific climatic conditions in the Straits of Gibraltar mean that the environment in these high areas is generally humid one. On the upper reaches of the rivers are gallery or tunnel forests, home to botanical treasures such as rhododendrons and some types of ferns and mosses. They are authentic survivors from several million years ago, and share ecological characteristics with other tropical laurel forests such as those found in the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira.
Portuguese oak, (also known as Andalusian oak) predominates in areas that are very humid due either to the proximity to water courses, or to the fog and mist blown in by the easterly winds. In fact this is considered a true tropical forest, with lianas, ferns and broadleaf plants and trees, such as the laurel. A dense vegetation of ferns and mosses grows on the trunks. Many of the rivers still maintain good water levels, even in the driest season, becoming green corridors, refuges for wildlife at the most difficult times in the yearly cycle.
Migrations and life cycles
The fact of migrations establishes an alternative area of reproduction and birth to the usual one in which the species develop and feed. Each migration is unique for each organism. No two are alike. In these cycles, migration is a crucial moment that can represent a different importance depending on the species.
Travelling companions
Tuna swim vast distances, from their spawning grounds in the Mediterranean to the areas of the Atlantic where they develop and grow. Early inhabitants living along the coast of the Straits of Gibraltar were familiar with these movements, and took advantage of them to fish for the tuna, as can be seen in the Roman city of Baelo Claudia. Other migrations can also be observed over the Straits, like that of the painted lady butterfly between Europe and Africa.
The drive, sensitivity and hard work of a group of scientists, naturalists, writers, intellectuals and insatiable travellers must be credited for the increased understanding and knowledge of migrations and of landscapes. Explorers of the 19th and early 20th centuries left written accounts of the little known natural world of these areas. People such as Carter, Irby, Ford,López de Ayala, and Chapman, to name but a few. Research and much of what is known today about the migratory passage of birds would never have been possible without Francisco Bernis and José Antonio Valverde, true pioneers of biology and ecology in Spain. A long line of collaborators followed on from those first steps taken in the mid-20th century, continuing up to the present day with projects such as the Migres Programme, which monitors migratory fauna.
The giants of the seas are great travellers. Some, such as the grey whale, swim thousands of kilometres between their breeding and feeding grounds. Whales and dolphins have frequented the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar since ancient times. Dolphins and pilot whales are permanent neighbours, whereas others, such as sperm whales, orcas and rorquals regularly pass by in search of food, or in migratory or foraging movements between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Migration of birds
Birds are true experts on migration Many migrate at the end of the autumn each year, embarking on a great journey from northern and central Europe to the Iberian Peninsula, seeking warmer climes where food is more readily available. For the space of a few weeks, the south of the Peninsula becomes a great funnel for vast numbers of birds on their way to Africa. The disadvantage for gliding birds when migrating is that there are no thermals over the sea. For this reason they have to fly to areas where distances between land masses are short, such as the Straits of Gibraltar. Birds that need to constantly flap their wings when they fly don’t depend on thermal currents, which means that they can fly at night or over broader stretches of water. There are also important migration routes for these birds over the Straits of Gibraltar.