This is the habitat most like that which originally covered Extremadura thousands of years ago. The best-preserved tracts can be found on the slopes and upper elevations of some mountain ranges, as well as in certain river valleys, composed of holm oaks, cork oaks or Pyrenean oaks, with a high density of trees creating a closed canopy. They are usually accompanied by shrub and scrub species, which are sometimes so dense that the forest becomes impenetrable.
Some of the most endangered birds of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Cinereous Vulture, Spanish Imperial Eagle and Black Stork, breed in this habitat, building their nests in large trees on mountain slopes. When the forest is dominated by trees and with less scrub, typically forest birds such as Eurasian Jay, Great Spotted and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Eurasian Wryneck, Eurasian Nuthatch, Short-toed Treecreeper, Common Redstart, Crested Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Common Chaffinch and Hawfinch abound. …and in the Pyrenean oak forests Western Bonelli’s Warbler. If the shrub layer is abundant, breeding birds such as European Robins, Common Nightingales, Eurasian Wrens and Blackcaps occur. It is also the ideal habitat for birds of prey such as the European Honey Buzzard – especially in the Pyrenean oak forests, Northern Goshawk, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Long-eared Owl and Tawny Owl.
The most representative SPAs of this habitat are Sierra de San Pedro; Monfragüe and the Surrounding Dehesas, Sierra de Villuercas and Guadarranque Valley and the Tajo Internacional River and Riveros.
