Sites - Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

Ornithological information See Box and Table 2 for key species. Birds which have wintered in Africa and are moving back to breeding grounds in Europe concentrate here for the short sea-crossing to Sicily, particularly large, soaring birds which avoid long sea-crossings. The site is comparable in importance to Gibraltar and the Bosphorus. Annually between March–May some 20,000–40,000 raptors of 24 species, including Circus macrourus and Falco naumanni overfly the site, as do significant numbers of Ciconia ciconia, C. nigra, Grus grus, Asio otus, Asio flammeus, Otus scops, Coturnix coturnix and Oriolus oriolus. Raptors breeding on the cliffs include Buteo rufinus cirtensis, Falco peregrinus, F. biarmicus and F. tinnunculus.

Site description Djebel el Haouaria is situated on the northern point of the Cap Bon peninsula in the extreme north-east of the country. The low peak (393 m) of El Haouaria is the northernmost mountain at the end of the Dorsale range. It supports a Mediterranean maquis vegetation of Olea europaea, Pistacia lentiscus, Myrtus communis and Cistus monspeliensis.

Populations of IBA trigger species

Protected areas

Protected area	Designation	Area (ha)	Relationship with IBA	Overlap with IBA (ha)
Grotte de Chauve souris d'El Haouaria	Natural Reserve	1	protected area contained by site	1

Local conservation groups The local conservation group below is working to support conservation at this IBA.

Habitats

Land use

Other biodiversity Djebel el Haouaria hosts one of the most important colonies of bats in Tunisia, including Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum (LR/cd).

Management considerations The site is protected as a Hunting Reserve and the cave used by the bats has been declared a Natural Reserve. There was a long tradition of bird-catching by local people at El Haouaria; large birds such as raptors were caught for food, using clap-nets on the side of the mountain, while Accipiter nisus were trapped and trained to catch migratory Coturnix coturnix; passerines were caught to feed the captive Accipter nisus. In the 1970s, the catching of raptors was stopped, largely as a result of the efforts of the A.A.O., falconry with A. nisus was brought under strict control, and a falconry festival instituted in May each year.

References Azafzaf (1995), Gaultier (1987a, 1988a), Hein and Kisling (1994), Ministère de l’Agriculture, Direction Générale des Forêts (2000), Thiollay (1975, 1977), Thomsen and Jacobsen (1979).

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Recommended citation  BirdLife International (2013) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Djebel el Haouaria. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 20/06/2013

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