page_title: Windmill Hill (Gibraltar)
section_title: Wildlife and caves
hierarchical_section_title: Windmill Hill (Gibraltar) / Wildlife and caves
caption_attribution_description: English: Barbary Partridges, Barranco del Infierno, TenerifeNederlands: barbarijse patrijzen, Tenerife
context_page_description: Windmill Hill or Windmill Hill Flats is one of a pair of plateaux, known collectively as the Southern Plateaux, at the southern end of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located just to the south of the Rock of Gibraltar, which descends steeply to the plateau. Windmill Hill slopes down gently to the south with a height varying from 120 metres at the north end to 90 metres at the south end. It covers an area of about 19 hectares, though about 6 hectares at the north end is built over. The plateau is ringed to the south and east with a line of cliffs which descend to the second of the Southern Plateaux, Europa Flats, which is itself ringed by sea cliffs. Both plateaux are the product of marine erosion during the Quaternary period and subsequent tectonic uplift. Windmill Hill was originally on the shoreline and its cliffs were cut by the action of waves, before the ground was uplifted and the shoreline moved further out to the edge of what is now Europa Flats.
context_section_description: The Windmill Hill area is one of the most important wildlife habitats in Gibraltar and is a Site of Community Importance (SCI) under the European Union Habitats Directive. Although the environment is at first sight rather hostile, with only a thin layer of poor-quality soil overlaying rocks, it supports a wide variety of flora including species which are not found elsewhere in Gibraltar. These include, among others, Salvia verbenaca (wild clary); Echium parviflorum (small-flowered bugloss); Plantago serraria (saw-toothed plantain); Hedysarum coronarium (Italian sainfoin); Mantisalca salmantica; Minuartia geniculata (pink sandwort); Tetragonolobus purpureus (winged asparagus pea); and Lathyrus annuus (annual yellow vetchling). The central area of Windmill Hill is largely open with very sparse ground cover, while peripheral areas are covered in low scrub which stands about 0.75 metres (2 ft 6 in) high on average, rising to a height of up to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in).
  Perhaps because of its prominence as the only vegetated area of the southern tip of Gibraltar, Windmill Hill attracts many species of migrating birds which may see it as a focal point on trans-Saharan journeys. It is home to Gibraltar's national bird, the Barbary partridge (Alectoris barbara), which nests in the plateau's open habitat. It is an important waypoint on the route that songbirds take in migrating between Europe and Africa, and is often their first European landfall on crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. Bats also hunt there, feeding on insects.
  A number of Gibraltar's caves are located under the hill. The Genista Caves came to light in the 1860s during work to enlarge the military prison, which uncovered partly blocked fissures that, when excavated, revealed the caves. They were explored by Captain Frederick Brome, using convict labour to carry out the excavations, and were named after Brome – Genista is the Latin name for the group of flowering shrubs known as broom, and the name was thus a punning homonym of Brome's own surname. The excavations revealed the bones of a large number of what are now locally extinct animals including lynx, leopard, hyena, rhinoceros and aurochs. They had evidently fallen through fissures in the surface and perished. Unfortunately the cave entrance was later lost or destroyed when a large magazine was built directly overhead at the end of the 19th century.
caption: The Barbary partridge, which nests on Windmill Hill
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