........taccuini di birdwatching di Claudio Chiossi.......

REGIONAL PARK OF ROCCAMALATINA PEBBLES

Situated in the common one of Guiglia (Modena) it has a surface of 750 hectares and altitude from 298 mt. to 670 mt. on the sea level. From 1974 the area that is found between the town of Roccamalatina and the fund valley of the Panaro rivers, to the inside of which already rises " Pebbles ", was subordinate to landscaped tie. Subsequently, with a proper action the province of Modena instituted the Natural Park of Pebbles of Roccamalatina. The aim of these provisions was the conservation of one of the more interesting areas of the Appennino Modenese, placing ties to the activities of exploitation of the man, beyond the limits already previewed from the norms of the water and geologic tie to which all the provincial mountain territory is subordinate. In 1983, the Region Emilia Romagna institutes the Regional Park of Pebbles of Roccamalatina, underlining the importance of the area like natural good of regional importance.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE WOODS

The envirnment of the Park mirrors the variety and the characteristics of the geologic nature. Placed in the band of the vegetation of the leaves oaks falling, accommodate a vegetation of warm environments in relationship to the moderated and warm climate that interests these hilly reliefs. Currently the wooded surfaces are reduced regarding the ability to expansion of the oak wood, in how much the zones of easy access are destined to the agricultural cultivations. They remain therefore borders of forest in the impervious and steep areas, or along the water course, where it is difficult to work and to cultivate the land. Moreover extended wooded surfaces are introduced like woods of chestnut tree and not like oaks wood, having had the chestnut one great alimentary importance near the population of the medium mountain.

The rocky environment
Near of Pebbles the atmosphere he becomes accessible exclusively for species able to resist to extreme conditions of dryness, that install in the small cracks of the rock or wherever they find ground a little in order to take root. Between all a Mediterranean species emerges the arboreal heather that finds a microclimate adapted to its persistence on the slopes of Pebbles. The presence of this heather is not limited only to the Park, but it covers a hilly band where the climate is not neither too much cold neither too much humid.

The woods of roverella Quercus pubescens
The roverella it is an oak that preprefers the dry and sunny places. In conditions of arboreal sufficiently humid forest other species prevails, while where the depositors are warmer the roverella it succeeds to dominate and forms forests through which it filters much light. In these conditions of brightness various shrubs grow between which the juniper, the citiso, the broom and the rose of spot. In the Park these conditions are frequent and forest situations are had therefore much similar one to a a group of bushes planted with trees or scrubs of limited development.

The woods mesofili
The wooded groupings that demand a modest one but continue water availability are characterized from one vegetation mesofila. In the Park these forests occupy the depositors with deep and shady grounds. The species arboreal more representative than this type of environment is the carpino black Ostrya carpinifolia which various types of maple trees are accompanied and the orniello Fraxinus ornus. Conspicuous is also the shrubby vegetation of the wood mesofilo between which the kernel, the corniolo Cornus mas, the fusaggine or cap of the priest and the maggiociondolo Laburnum anagyroides. On the ground, to the shadow of the trees, they grow various species herbaceous that form one little dense layer. These plants find in the underbrush optimal environmental conditions, lacking extreme warmth or cold and persisting the humidity also during the sunny summer. Many of these plants are very notes for the beauty of their flowers, like as an example the grass trinità, the tooth of dog and various orchids.

The woods along the rivers
Along the water course that they come down towards the Panaro river the vegetation is constituted from species that have a preference for the damp. The main elements of these forests are the willows, the poplars and the alders. The alders are easy recognizable for their fruit of aspect strobiliforme, similar to one small pine-cone, almost of wood and able to float. This adaptation concurs with the plant mother to disperse with the aid of the current of the torrent own seeds. In the herbaceous layer they are found farfaraccio, campanellini d'inverno and narcissuses.

The chestnut tree forests
The chestnut tree forests have had to the job of the man who has disseminated this tree above all for to serve him which food source. The maintenance of the wood involves the shrubby and arboreal necessity periodically to remove the species of the natural forest that stretches to invade them.

In fact, the chestnut tree forests left in state of abandonment are often found full from bushes, ferns and also from the presence of young trees of the forests neighbors, sign of a progressive return towards the natural forest. In other cases, particularly where the chestnut trees are hit from a serious disease dictate cortical cancer, the trees are reduced to hedgetop cut. The tiller that they reject from the fetters are, in fact, more resistant to the cancer and they are used for the reorganization of the ill woods of chestnut tree.

In the Park, where the microclimatic conditions concur it, grow also exemplary of beech tree accompanied to cerro Quercus cerri and underbrush of blueberries. The presence of this species, if put in relation to plants as the arboreal heather renders the vegetation of the Park of great interest, because next to a vegetation that has a preference for the arid one and of typical Mediterranean type they grow species of elevated quotas more with continental climate, like note the beech tree.

ANIMALS

The territory of the Park, with its several environmental diversities accommodates species of animals. Between the mammals they are found: the vixen, the faina, the skunk and the donnola that are particularly skillful predators in the nocturnal hunting. Of nocturnal habits, but with a more varied diet, it is the rate that digs the own rich lair of rooms and escapes to the base of cliffs in the folto of the forests. Roditori Scoiattoli, ghiri, moscardini and field mice, mammalian small, densely are distributed, thanks to the wealth of products of the forests and underbrush. Also the curl is an inhabitant of the Park, whose diet, composed mainly of bugs, renders it particularly useful to the vegetation. The reptiles are represented from little species: the natrice from the collar, more commonly called biwake of water, remarkablly is reduced of number. The coluber, the most large biwake of the north of Italy, easy recognizable from the black color, is present in good number alimentandosi of the abundant microfauna that popola the underbrush. The coluber throws and bites, but it is not velenoso. Velenosa is the common vipera, sighted sporadically in the Park and therefore an encounter with it is much improbable one. Other reptiles, pertaining to the family of the sauri are the orbettino, the lucertola and the ramarro, very present in the territory. In the forre humid between cliffs we find tritone crestato and the rospo common between the amphibians. The birds represent without doubt the more numerous and better visible faunistica member of the Park: they are approximately 200 the species that in the arc of the year can be sighted. On the full of rocks walls nidifica the travelling hawk. This falcon capture its prede in flight piombando they I lean after fastest dives during which speed of approximately 300 hour kilometers can catch up one. Present others rapaci in the Park are: the gheppio, the poiana, the sparviero and between the nocturnes: the allocco, the barn owl, civetta and the horned owl. Ghiandaia, gazza with to the cornacchia grey is the corvidi more common. Where the dimensions of the trees concur it nidificano stick green and I beat red greater, that they practice openings in the log with their powerful spouts. In winter he is pleasant to admire the variopinto I beat muraiolo, from the flight similar to that one of a butterfly, while it tries bugs in the fissures of the knots full of rocks walls. Other birds from the curious behavior are the averle, small and capirossa, that they thread them prede in the thorns of the rovi used like pantry. Many other birds popolano the Park between which the cince, capinere and the usignoli. Their songs fill up the forests and with the aid of binoculars it is not difficult osservarli in their atmosphere.
(Extract from escursionistica Paper of the Regional Park of Pebbles of Roccamalatina edited by Region Emilia Romagna/Comune di Guiglia)

The check-list brought back here one refers to the observations carried out in the course of visits between years 1982 and 1993.
The number brought back in the column Frequency indicates the number of times in which that species it has been observed: as an example I have observed the Lanner only in 2 occasions.

A COLLECTION OF IMAGES

Attention: for the translation of these texts from Italian I have used the help of an automatic translation program; the signaling through e-mail of possible errors (and them the corrections) they will be welcome.