Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a limestone promontory of little more than six square kilometres set at the point where the Mediterranean narrows almost to touch Africa. That position makes it one of the great migratory funnels on the planet: every spring and every autumn, hundreds of thousands of storks, kites, short-toed eagles and honey buzzards gather over the Rock waiting for the right conditions to cross the strait, because soaring birds cannot cover long distances over the sea. The Upper Rock reserve keeps Mediterranean scrub, vertical cliffs and a system of karst caves that shelter bat colonies and in which the last traces of Neanderthal occupation in Europe have been found. Its waters, where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean mix, are highly productive and hold bottlenose and common dolphins resident year-round, as well as serving as a migration route for rorquals and pilot whales.