Circeo Natural World

The park is a bird sanctuary, where cormorants spend the winter and many species pass by throughout the year. The extensive forests of evergreen oaks together with coastal lagoons and marshes have plenty of fine sites for birding. The breeding birds include White Stork, Great Spotted Cuckoo and Golden Oriole, but on passage and in winter there may be impressive gatherings of birds of a wide range of species. Glossy Ibis, Spotted Eagle and Red footed Falcon may be enough to whet the appetite, but Marsh Sandpiper and Audoun's Gull are

among other regular visitors here. The Circeo is an key area for breeding, passage and wintering for many other interesting species: given the geographical positioning coinciding with the main migratory routes, and also given the big variety of integral habitats it offers, the Circeo Park, with 250 different species of birds which have been recorded in the census of the last years, has in the avifauna its main wildlife aspect.

            Click on Photos to see the photografies of the Park

In particular, among the species identified, there are several Coots and Cormorants and rare species like the Peregrine, the Osprey, the White-tailed Eagle, the Crane, the Greater Flamingo, the Spoonbill, and many others. In contrast, as far as mammals are concerned, there are only about 20 species of them. Nowadays there are several studies and evaluations about the opportunity and the possibility of

reintroducing some species, according to the programs of preservation and global recovery of the natural environments. Though some of the most characteristic animals (wolf and deer) have disappeared more than 100 years ago’, there is still some interesting fauna, such as the wild boar (Sus scrofa), the emblem of the park, and the fallow deer (Dama dama ) introduced in the past and now being gradually replaced by the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and a colony muflons (Ovis musimon), the wild sheep still found at Zannone Island a species of Mediterranean mountains thought to be one of the two ancestors for all modern domestic sheep breeds.

            Click on Photos to see the photografies of the Park