The 'Wild' Mediterranean: Cala dell'Oro
The high heather and strawberry-tree forests covering the interior coastal strip represent a compact vegetation which is perfumed (heather, sea hornbeam, and myrtle), resinous (shrub, rock-roses, terebinth pistachio, and pines), colored by the scarlet fruits of the strawberry tree and by the delicate flowers of the rock-roses, often inextricable and spiny (broom and spiny spurge, rough bindweed, asparagus). It is populated by wild boars and foxes, lizards and green lizards, by the small maquis birds (especially Sardinian Warblers and Blackcaps), by the migrating avifauna (turtle doves, woodpigeons, hoopoes, and golden orioles) and by a large variety of invertebrates. Among the cliff and the maquis there are areas dominated by thyme, lentisk, and spurges. The Mediterranean pines share those lands that nature and men have reserved for them: near the sea the Aleppo pine, in the inner areas the cluster pine, and close to the inhabited centers the stone pine.
