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Tara Mountain National Park

Western Serbia  >  Serbia

Tara Mountain slopes are clad in dense forests with numerous high-altitude clearings and meadows, steep cliffs, deep ravines and many limestone caves.

Added* by Dragan Simic
Most recent update 3 október 2024

Description

In Tara Mountain National Park 80% of the area is covered by forest, 85% of it consisting of Norway Spruce, Silver Fir and the European Beech. Altitude ranges from medium 1000 m up to the 1591 m high Kozji Rid peak.

There are 140 bird species recorded within the national park, 96 of them breeding in recent years. Among the reasonably frequent in the right habitat (= possible and, with some focused effort, realistic) to even common species are Jarpi (beech and mixed forests), Engirella (larger meadows), Valugla (with over 70 territories, the commonest owl in the park’s mixed forests), Gráspæta (mixed forests), Grænspæta (forest edges) and Svartspæta (all forests), Hnotbrjótur (conifer and mixed forests), Barrmeisa, Toppmeisa, Votmeisa, Grámeisa, Glókollur, Gullkollur, Mistilþröstur, Dómpápi, Gulfinka and Krossnefur. Also, breeding Mánaþröstur and Skógarsnípa. The rarest species are Peðgrípur, Drumbspæta , Sparrugla and Skálmugla.

Some of the mammalian highlights of the national park are brown bear (relatively numerous, but rarely seen), chamois (frequent), roe deer (common), wildcat, European pine marten, and Eurasian otter.

Photos by Mileta Cekovic and Dragan Simic.

Details

Access

Tara National Park lies three and a half hours southwest / 205 km away from the capital of Serbia, Belgrade (260 km by the new highway, or 3 and a half driving hours in both cases) . Access to Tara is possible from three directions: via Bajina Bašta - Kaluđerske bare 16 km, Kremna - Kaluđerske bare 9 km, Bajina Bašta - Mitrovac 27 km.

There are 290 km of marked dirt roads and hiking trails in the park, as well as 75 km of mountain biking routes (most of these tracks are also passable by ordinary cars). Excellent and constantly updated 1:50,000 hiking maps of the park are obtainable at the visitor’s centre in Mitrovac (find the NP authorities at www.nptara.rs, see the link below). The one of many possible routes, circular route shown on the map is about 20 km long.

For driving directions, zoom in on the map and click on the "P" (parking) sign.

Terrain and Habitat

Forest , Mountain , Canyon/cliff , Lake , Grassland

Conditions

Mountainous , Rocky

Circular trail

Yes

Is a telescope useful?

Can be useful

Good birding season

Spring , Summer

Best time to visit

Spring

Route

Paved road , Unpaved road

Difficulty walking trail

Strenuous

Accessible by

Foot , Bicycle , Car

Birdwatching hide / platform

No

Extra info

To be properly explored, Tara National Park requires at least four days or, better, a week.

Links

View other birding spots in the area that are published on Birdingplaces

Map

Top 5 birds

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