Cabañeros National Park
From when all this was a sea to the rut of each autumn, in eleven chapters and from rock to fish.
Start at the beginning20 minutes of reading, plus however long you spend playing with the drawings
1The rock
Cabañeros lies on the Iberian Massif, the ancient basement that covers the western half of the peninsula. Its rocks are between 600 and 300 million years old and almost all are sedimentary: mud and sand from the floor of seas that no longer exist.
600 million years ago
What is now Cabañeros lay under a shallow sea, at the edge of the continent of Gondwana. Mud piled up on the sea floor, which in time gave the Pusa Slates, and on top sand, the Azorejo Sandstones. That sand still keeps ripple marks, the waves left by the surf.
515 million years ago
At the start of the Cambrian those layers folded and ended up out of the sea. In the open air, rain and rivers wore them down with nothing to protect them: there were as yet no plants on dry land.
477 million years ago
In the Ordovician the sea covered everything again and left new, flat layers on top of the old, twisted ones. That contact is called an angular unconformity, and the Boquerón del Estena is one of the best places in Europe to see it. Among the new layers is the Armorican Quartzite, and trilobites lived on that sea floor.
About 300 million years ago
Gondwana collided with Laurussia and the Variscan mountain range rose. The thrust folded all the layers into waves, upwards (anticlines) and downwards (synclines), and heat and pressure turned many sandstones into quartzites.
From 250 to 25 million years ago
For millions of years water and ice wore down the relief. The soft slate crumbled; the quartzite held. That is why the mountains of Cabañeros are quartzite. Between 60 and 25 million years ago, the collision of Iberia with Europe, the one that raised the Pyrenees, also raised the Montes de Toledo.
2.6 million years ago
The climate went from humid tropical to alternating rainy, cool periods with dry, warm ones. The mountains crumbled into quartzite pebbles that water spread out at the foot of the hills: that is how the raña formed, the park's great plain, where the red deer graze today.
The oldest rocks in the park: greenish-grey siltstones in thin, parallel sheets, up to 600 metres thick.
Where to see it. On the River Estena, between the Maíllo stream and the ford of the Cuesta de la Vaca, and at the Chorrera de Horcajo.
Yellowish quartz sandstones, heavily bedded, with wave ripple marks and quite a few fossils.
Where to see it. At the Boquerón del Estena and along the river, as far as the Valdelayegua ravine.
The Cambrian layers, folded and cut flat, and on top those of the Ordovician, flat. Between the two the time is missing when everything was out of the water, wearing away.
Where to see it. At the Boquerón del Estena, about 250 metres upstream of its confluence with the Maíllo stream: one of the best places in Europe to see it.
Beds of white quartzite between 1 and 10 metres each. It is the material that raises the mountains of the Montes de Toledo: the culprit behind their heights.
Where to see it. At the Boquerón del Estena, the Plaza de los Moros and the Rocigalgo area, where it reaches 400 metres thick.
Quartzites, sandstones and slates in thin layers. At their base there is a layer full of shells of bivalves buried alive: it was left by a tsunami on the coasts of Gondwana.
Where to see it. Next to the Armorican Quartzite, on the slopes of the synclines.
Dark, bluish slates, from when the sea reached its deepest. They are the richest in fossils, and one of their ages, the Dapingian, has its worldwide reference section south of Navas de Estena.
Where to see it. In the synclines of Navas de Estena, La Viñuela and La Chorrera.
Yellowish sandstones with the marks of the storms that stirred the sea floor. They are also called Botella Quartzites.
Where to see it. At the Morro de Palillos, at 623 metres, near the Pocito stream: its only outcrop in the park.
Quartzite pebbles in a reddish clay, carried down from the mountains. It is usually less than 10 metres thick and reaches 25 in the most distant areas.
Where to see it. On the great plain in the south-east of the park: the rañas of El Espino, La Viñuela, El Rostro or La Toledana.
Screes of loose blocks at the foot of the quartzite crags. They are torn off by the cold: water gets into the cracks, freezes, expands and splits the rock.
Where to see it. On the steepest slopes, such as those of the Boquerón del Estena or El Chorro.
2The fossils
All the fossils of Cabañeros are Palaeozoic and of marine origin. Three kinds are distinguished, according to what was preserved and the rock that kept it.
Fossils are historical heritage and protected by law: they must not be touched or moved, however good the intention. Their interest lies in the fossil and its place, and separated they lose almost everything they can tell. In short, do not touch them.
To the naked eye
Ichnofossils
Trails, burrows and resting marks left by an animal as it moved over the sea floor. They are preserved in quartzites and sandstones, and often it is not known who made them.
When the rock splits open
Skeletal remains
Nothing is left of the shell: what is left is its mould in the slate. When the rock splits open, two halves come out, one with the relief of the inside and the other with that of the outside.
Only under the microscope
Palynomorphs
Tiny remains of organic wall. To see them an electron microscope is needed, and they must first be separated from the rock by slow chemical processes.
The most famous trace in Cabañeros is the one trilobites left as they rummaged in the mud. Five types are distinguished in the park.
From above
In section
It walks over the soft bottom and leaves a double furrow, with the scratches of its legs in a V shape.
A layer of fine sand covers the trace at once, and that is what saves it.
The mud turns to slate and the sand to quartzite, much harder.
The slate erodes and the base of the quartzite is left in the open, with the mould of the trace in relief. That is a cruziana.
The anemones in the second photo are called Astropolichnus hispanicus: a circle with between 25 and 40 ridges and, in the centre, the hollow of the animal, which lived half-buried in the sand. They coincide with the oldest trilobites, and that is why they serve to date the rocks.
In 1880, the engineer Daniel de Cortázar wrote that on the Espinazo del Can, between Retuerta and Horcajo, cruzianas were so abundant that «specimens could be taken out by the ton». Today, luckily, they stay where they are.
Arthropods with the carapace divided into three lobes, hence the name. They moulted many times and each moult could fossilise: that is why they are the most abundant fossil in the slates.
Shelled animals, very frequent in the park. The commonest are the orthids, with folds that fan out.
The commonest, the cystoids: pear-shaped, fixed to the bottom and with a skeleton of plates full of channels.
Molluscs that lived half-buried in the sediment. Coxiconcha is almond-shaped.
Colonies that floated in the water. The main species, Didymograptus, is tuning-fork shaped.
3Climate and relief
The park's climate is Mediterranean, with continental influence: summer concentrates the drought and the rains come mostly in autumn and spring, in amounts that vary a great deal from one year to the next.
To understand where each plant grows you only need to look at a slope from top to bottom: water runs down and carries the soil with it, which piles up below.
Ridge. At the top, the driest. There is almost no soil, and sun and wind strike full on. Rock and low shrubs.
Slope. In the middle, neither much water nor too little. Holm oaks, cork oaks and rockroses.
Valley. Below, the water and the soil it carries gather: the soil is deeper and more fertile. Ash, alder and the leafiest woods.
95.5 % of the park drains to the Guadiana and the rest to the Tagus. It has a thousand kilometres of streams that dry up in summer and some fifty of rivers that carry water all year. The two big ones are the Estena, which rises at the Rocigalgo and runs 40 kilometres through the park, and the Bullaque, in the far east.
The climate, with data from recent years What to see each month
4The woodlands
Cabañeros is, without doubt, one of the best representations of Mediterranean woodland on the peninsula. Trees cover a little over half the park, 51 %, and are the most mature stage of its vegetation.
The one that best withstands thirst
The holm oak, or «chaparro», tolerates drought and almost any soil, limestone or siliceous. It dominates the centre and east of the Montes de Toledo.
More than 8,000 hectares
It asks for a little more moisture and mild temperatures. It covers more than 20 % of the park, in low areas and gentle hills, and here reaches its inland limit.
The one that is coming back
The Portuguese oak looks for valleys, streams and shady slopes. It lost out to the holm oak, which gave better charcoal, browse and acorns, and today it is regaining ground.
Dry leaves all winter
The Pyrenean oak lives on cold slopes above 1,000 metres and in valley bottoms. Its leaves dry in autumn but do not fall until well into winter.
Riverside woods grow beside the water, and each tree takes its place at its own distance from the channel. Swap the river for a stream in the middle of August and see who holds out.
Feet always in the water
The alder (Alnus glutinosa) grows fast and forms woods of about 15 metres. It needs its roots soaked all year, and that is why it is scarce: it only lives on rivers that do not dry up, like the Estena.
Pollarded trees
The ash is the most widespread and groundwater is enough for it. It used to be pollarded to give its branches to livestock; as this is no longer done, the crowns have grown so large that they split easily.
A memory of the tropics
The Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica) is a small evergreen tree, a relic of the Tertiary tropical climate. It lives in shady ravines because, as the saying goes, «the laurel likes to see the water, but not to touch it».
A memory of the ice
Birches spread after the glaciations and today survive in cool corners. The one at La Ventilla, in the Bullaque basin, has 806 adult birches: the southernmost population of Betula pubescens known in Spain.
The ones people planted
Poplar groves or «povedas»: stands of poplars. Many were planted beside rivers and streams, some of hybrid varieties meant for making paper pulp.
5The scrub
Scrub and shrubs occupy 44 % of the park. Most of it grows where there could be woodland and came from its degradation: fires, felling, charcoal-burning and grazing.
This is how the hillside recovers when it is left in peace. And this is how it gets stuck. Climbing takes decades; dropping, an afternoon.
Woodland. Holm oaks, cork oaks and Portuguese oaks: the most mature stage.
The deer hold back the climb: they eat the leguminous shrubs, the saplings and the newly sprouted holm oaks, and the hillside goes no further than scrub. And not all scrub comes from a lost woodland: on the summits and in the peat bogs there are shrublands that have always been like this.
At the very top, on the Rocigalgo, at 1,449 metres: cold in winter, wind and sun with no shade. Legumes dominate, such as Echinospartum ibericum, Adenocarpus argyrophyllus and Genista cinerascens.
Soils waterlogged all year, acid and without oxygen, almost always under 10 hectares. Cross-leaved heath, ling and sweet gale. In the district they are called «trampales», «bonales» or «bohonales».
Tall, dense scrub on the slopes: strawberry tree, laurustinus, mock privet, Mediterranean buckthorn and, where it is warmer, mastic. On the raña loose patches remain which in the district are called «manchos».
6The grasses
Herbaceous communities occupy some 4,500 hectares, 11.7 % of the park, and their best example is the pasture of the raña. They used to be kept up by the plough and livestock; today, by the deer's teeth.
Rock communities
They live on crags, with almost no soil. Navelwort, stonecrop and ferns; on the quartzite ridges, the wild pink and a foxglove that only grows in these mountains.
Therophyte communities
One-year plants: they sprout with the rains, flower in spring and in summer only the seed remains. They take up the most space, and the raña is their best example.
Xeromesophytic communities
Where livestock gathered, their dung made good pastures: the «majadales». Also the «berciales», of «berceo», a grass that grows taller than a metre.
Mesophytic communities
Beside alder woods, ash woods and birch woods, on soils that never dry out completely. Round-headed club-rush and pennyroyal. They occupy very little: the park is too Mediterranean for them.
Amphibious communities
They live in the «navas», flats of the raña that flood in winter or spring and then dry out. Water crowfoots, Mentha cervina and pennyroyal.
Hygropeat communities
In «trampales» and «bonales», waterlogged, acid and without oxygen, an insect-catching plant lives among the mosses: the sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). In 2025 a park guide found another, the butterwort (Pinguicula lusitanica). They are threatened by the red deer and the wild boar.
Aquatic communities
In still water float the white and yellow water lilies, seen on the Bullaque and the Guadiana. On the waterlogged banks, the reed and the bulrushes.
7The raña and its people
The raña looks like an African savanna, and it is easy to think it was always like this. It was not: the plain we see is the work of centuries of fire, ploughing, livestock and charcoal. The soil, though, was laid down by geology: it is the one in chapter 1.
Before people
In the low parts of the raña, between 620 and 750 metres above sea level, the vegetation that belongs there is a dense, shady holm oak wood.1
For centuries
Being flat, the raña was what people used most, and their main tool was fire. The result was a landscape broken into patches and always young: rockrose and heath scrub with scattered holm oaks, Portuguese oaks and wild pears, the ideal place for the rabbit and the lynx.2 The hillside was burned to sow cereal and then abandoned; those clearings came back about every 20 years and reached almost the whole raña.3
From 1246 to 1829
The Montes belonged to the city of Toledo. Its ordinances only allowed clearings «to sow bread» in the «monte pardo», the rockrose and heath scrub, and then they had to be left. In the mature woods no trees were cut, and of everything taken out a twelfth was paid to Toledo.4 In the highest third of the mountains neither clearing nor grazing was allowed: that is why the woods are still there.5
From 1829 to 1860
Free of Toledo, the villages shared out land among their residents to cultivate, and as the best and nearest was the rañas, a large part was ploughed.6 In the dehesas, the city's creditors rented the pastures and went on grubbing up and thinning the low scrub to make grassland with trees; charcoal was made from holm oak and heather wood.7 The scree slopes were chosen for the charcoal pits.8
The 40s
After the war, the estates gave work for almost fifteen years to shepherds, goatherds, woodcutters and charcoal-burners.9 Merino sheep, bred for meat, and Retinta and Avileña cattle grazed, and the goatherds burned the old scrub so that it would sprout again.10 Where livestock gathered, their dung made the «majadales», the best pastures.11
The 50s and 60s
From the 1950s the scrub was cleared on a grand scale.12 In the early 1960s, the Instituto Nacional de Colonización ploughed 6,000 hectares of the central raña: two years clearing scrub and trees.13 Cereal was sown, and that is where the raña gets its dehesa look.14
Today
That is how the «African» landscape of the raña was left, a grassland with scattered trees,15 covering some 8,000 hectares.16 Now the deer keep it open: they eat the acorns and the seedlings, and prune the holm oaks from below as high as they can reach standing.17 To give it trees back, the park planted 80,000 holm oaks, cork oaks and Portuguese oaks in the winter of 2022-202318 and another 23,731 trees in that of 2024-2025.19
The ordinances of Toledo distinguished three kinds of hillside, and each had different rules.20
«Monte pardo». Rockrose and heath scrub. Residents could make clearings to sow bread, and then had to leave them.
«Monte bravo». The mature holm oak woods, alone or with cork oak and Portuguese oak. Their trees could not be cut.
«Monte grueso». The Pyrenean oak woods. They were not cut either.
The very top. Roughly the upper third of the mountains: no clearings and no livestock. That is why it keeps its woods.
It was paid on the bread sown; on the lambs, kids and pigs born; on the calves, foals and mules; and on cheese, wool and swarms of bees.21 It was paid by the residents of the Montes, who owned nothing.
Cabañeros comes from the conical huts, thatched with the surrounding vegetation, used by shepherds and charcoal-burners. Today the restored ones remain and many «hut floors», the marks of the old settlements.22
In the woods of the mountains you can still see old stumps, paths and charcoal pits from the charcoal-burning of the early 20th century.23
People's hand is very evident on the rañas around the villages, less on the distant ones and very little in the mountains.24
Fire, clearings, grazing, felling and charcoal-burning turned many woods into scrub. That impoverishes the soil, and the wood takes longer to come back.25
8The mammals
Cabañeros has one of the most important mammal communities in Europe: more than forty species, from the deer of the raña to the bats nobody sees.
In September the stags come into rut and roar all over the mountains: that is the «berrea», when the males, so elusive the rest of the year, let themselves be seen on the raña. In spring they shed their antlers, which grow back in summer, and the young are born.
The Roe Deer does it the other way round: rut in summer, with a dry bark at dusk. And even so its young are also born in spring, because the embryo is paused for some months before it goes on growing.
Cervus elaphus
Abundant all year. It is the most visible mammal on the raña, above all in the second half of the year.
Sus scrofa
Abundant throughout the park, according to the official guide. It is seen crossing the raña and the tracks of the hillside.
Capreolus capreolus
Present in the mountains and valleys of the hillside, where the Red Deer does not dominate. The Montes de Toledo's own subspecies lives here.
Dama dama
Introduced. It comes from stocks that have been on some estates for centuries and from recent introductions.
The rabbit is the link between plants and hunters: more than forty species of predator eat it, some specialised in it, such as the lynx and the Spanish Imperial Eagle. In Cabañeros it is scarce and lives in scattered patches, because of disease, the ageing of the scrub and predation. And without the rabbit there is no lynx: the last one was seen in the park in 1992, and it did not return until the releases of 2023.
Vulpes vulpes
It eats mostly carrion of deer and wild boar, which is not lacking here.
Martes foina
Almost half of what it eats is mammals.
Genetta genetta
It lives on mice, voles and other small mammals.
Felis silvestris
Rabbits and hares are 53.8 % of what it eats.
Meles meles
Omnivorous: earthworms, insects, fruits, roots, small vertebrates
Herpestes ichneumon
Young rabbits and small mammals; also insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fruits
Lynx pardinus
It came back with the releases of 2023 and 2024; in 2026 its first litter was born in the park.
Lutra lutra
Its best population is on the River Estena, as far as the Cíjara reservoir.
They are the great forgotten: more than 16 species have been identified in the park.
Its spines protect it from everything except car wheels, its main cause of death.
There is hardly any record of it. In the mountains it was said to bite livestock and drive its head crazy.
They make up most of the park's rodent biomass. The genet, for example, lives on them.
9The birds
Birds that share a habitat form a community. In the park seven are distinguished, from the holm oak wood to the wetlands, and each has its own list of neighbours.
The website has 204 bird pages, each with its map, the animation of how it flies and, almost always, its song. Here they are by habitat: pick one.
The sclerophyllous woodland, the hard-leaved one. Robins, blackbirds, chaffinches, serins, dunnocks and linnets, and also warblers, great tits and blue tits.
The birds of this habitatThe deciduous woodland has birds with an Atlantic air. Blue Tits, chaffinches and robins are abundant; at lower density, woodpeckers, nuthatches and jays.
The birds of this habitatThree warblers make up 80 % of the scrub birds. The Red-legged Partridge, always near tracks and firebreaks.
Few species breed there, but very showy ones. In the south of the park there is a White Stork colony, and jackdaws and sparrows breed in its nests.
The birds of this habitatIn winter, flocks of seed-eating birds. The White Wagtail takes advantage of the bugs left exposed when the earth is turned over.
The birds of this habitatOn the Estena, the White-throated Dipper and the Grey Wagtail. At the end of August, some Black Storks take advantage of the fish left in the pools.
The birds of this habitatPonds, temporary lagoons and waterlogged banks: snipe, lapwings, herons and, among the vegetation, Cetti's Warbler.
The birds of this habitat10Reptiles and amphibians
A dozen species of amphibians and nineteen of reptiles live in the park. Six are Iberian endemics: they live nowhere else in the world.
Iberian endemics: in the whole world, they exist only on the peninsula.
Timon lepidus
Very abundant and spread throughout the park, according to the guide and the website.
Lacerta schreiberi
Scarce; mostly in the north, at the headwaters of the streams that rise on the Rocigalgo.
Mauremys leprosa
The most abundant terrapin in the park, in the watercourses of the raña and the mountains, except the highest ones.
Emys orbicularis
Scarcer and more demanding than the Spanish Pond Turtle: clean pools on the upper courses of the streams.
Malpolon monspessulanus
Frequent; low scrub and open spaces. The only common snake of the raña, according to the guide.
Natrix maura
The most abundant snake in the park, tied to water, according to the guide.
Pleurodeles waltl
In lagoons and ponds, such as the Cuatro Morros one.
Salamandra salamandra
In damp woods and scrub, up to the highest areas; on the floor of the Pyrenean oak wood after rain.
Lissotriton boscai
In lagoons and streams with plenty of vegetation, such as the Cuatro Morros lagoon.
Alytes cisternasii
In the wetlands of the woodland and scrub and in areas near streams.
Hyla molleri
In ponds with vegetation on the raña and the hillside, such as the Cuatro Morros lagoon.
11The fish
About 75 % of the freshwater fish species of the peninsula are endemic, something no other European fauna matches. And almost nobody knows what they are called.
Native Exotic
Anaecypris hispanica
In the River Estena; it has disappeared from the Bullaque.
Luciobarbus microcephalus
In the River Estena, according to the park guide; found only in the rivers of the Guadiana basin.
Luciobarbus comizo
In the River Estena, according to the park guide.
Pseudochondrostoma willkommii
In the River Estena, according to the park guide.
Iberochondrostoma lemmingii
In the River Estena, according to the park guide.
Squalius pyrenaicus
In the River Estena, according to the park guide.
Squalius alburnoides
The most abundant fish in the park's seasonal streams, according to the guide.
Cobitis paludica
In the River Estena, according to the guide; it lives on the bottom.
Everything in this guide can be seen on foot. These routes show it best; the colour says which chapter each thing belongs to.
The unconformity, the Armorican Quartzite, cruzianas, fossil anemones and ripple marks.
Cruzianas, birches and, high on the Rocigalgo, the summit scrub.
The Pusa Slates and wave ripple marks left in the rock.
Pollarded ashes, alders, Pyrenean oaks and cork oaks in a few kilometres.
Pyrenean oak wood, Portuguese oak wood and cork oaks.
The raña, the Portuguese laurel groves of Casa Palillos and the hide for watching deer.
Armorican Quartzite, Mediterranean scrub and views from the summit.
Each page linked from the guide has the full explanation and its own sources. Original text of the guide: Mariano Gómez, 2020; redesigned in October 2026.
↑↓ to move · Enter to open · Esc to close
