British Birds » Important Bird Areas: Gibraltar

By Keith Bensusan and Charles Perez Abstract - Gibraltar is a tiny, rocky promontory at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a UK Overseas Territory, captured from Spain by an Anglo-Dutch force in 1704 and ceded to Britain in 1713. Situated on the northern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, little more than 20 km from the North African mainland, it is an important bottleneck site for the migration of large soaring birds, and is also important for migrant seabirds entering and leaving the Mediterranean. The site's habitats and natural history interests are described with particular reference to its IBA designations. Short-toed Eagle being mobbed by Yellow-legged Gull. Pic by Paul Acolina Soaring birds congregate at the Strait of Gibraltar in their thousands. The Strait is one of the two main migratory bottlenecks in Europe (the other being Falsterbo, in Sweden), and the soaring birds species group is a trigger for the Rock of Gibraltar IBA. The Rock also holds an enormous breeding colony of Yellow-legged Gulls, numbering many thousands of pairs. Their breeding period coincides with the spring or northerly migration, during which the gulls become very aggressive and mob raptors that fly close to the Rock, particularly larger species such as the Short-toed Eagle. To read this article and each current issue in full, you can subscribe to BB here The post Important Bird Areas: Gibraltar appeared first on British Birds.