Flora
e Fauna
Le
Marche thanks to its diverse environmental composition boasts a huge
variety of animals and plants.
Here in fact alpine flowers and eagles coexist with maritime strawberry
trees and storks.
Human
beings have much modified Le Marche natural environment to increase the
cultivable surface and so a lot of animal species had almost disappeared.
Nowadays, though, thanks to a wise program they are now coming back.
Agriculture
has been the main activity in Le Marche for years. The lack of large
woodlands under 800 m above sea level is so explained.
The
Nature Reserve of Abbadia di Fiastra is the best place to admire the
vegetation that has covered Le Marche hills since 1700.
The wood encloses in fact bitter oaks, ‘orniello’ and rural maples.
A
lot of new species have then been introduced by human beings throughout
the years. We can so enjoy the beauty of chestnut trees, oak trees,
beech trees hornbeams and holly.
The
“Laga Mountains” are characterized by the presence of fir and birch
trees on whose branches a lot of birds make their nests.
Seeing birds such as green woodpeckers, nightingales, jays, blackbirds,
wrens, and robins it’s in fact not unusual. Hares, squirrels, foxes,
weasels, porcupines, badgers find shelter in the thicket.
Broom,
gentian, iris and orchids and wild roses grow at the edge of wood lands.
Black cytisus and ‘spino quercino’ are much more rare.
Pastures are often shadowed by leafy beech trees.
The
Sibillini mountains are keepers of precious treasures. There in fact
plants such as ‘giglio martagone’, the precious ‘Appenine star’,
junipers, ‘uva orsiana’ grow.
The mountains are inhabited by rare animals such as wolves, martens,
wild cats, roe deers.
A look at the sky could also offer the stunning show of the flight of
the eagles and the hawks and their preys: alpine chaffinches.
It
is a must to remember the Chirocefalo del Marchesoni, a unique species
of crustacean that lives in the Pilato lake.
Along
the rivers beds willows and poplar find a perfect habitat. On their
branches and in the bushes offered by reeds many birds make their nests.
Red willows, black and white poplars offer shelter to ‘nittini’,
herons and other species.
Approaching
the sea holm-oak woods, laurel, black cytisus, maple trees, strawberry
trees, lentisk and Mediterranean honeysuckle grow in all their
beauty.
They are often chosen for the passage and nestling of various bird
species, swifts among the others.
The
rich and diverse environment always offers new sights.
Love for nature and interest in wildlife is so constantly increased in
any one who happen to have a walk in the quiet paths that run through Le
Marche.