Urban Areas

One of the places where we can see wildlife most regularly on a daily basis is in urban areas. From the large cities of Lisbon and Porto to small inland villages, they offer a wide variety of habitats: rooftops, towers and eaves, old buildings and ruins, gardens, parks, tree-lined avenues, cemeteries, urban backyards, vacant lots, bridges, canals and channeled rivers, and even the streetlights that attract insects at night. The buildings function as artificial cliffs, and the gardens and parks as small islands of vegetation amidst the concrete.

This area supports a fauna that has learned to take advantage of the human presence, whether for shelter, water, or food. Many species nest or sleep in buildings, others live in gardens and parks, and some, such as seagulls (in coastal cities), pigeons, and rats, are so linked to cities that they are rarely found outside of them. As cities connect to the countryside, rivers, and coast, it is common to find species from all other biomes here, especially in parks and peripheral areas.

This chapter covers towns and cities and their built environment, including buildings, streets, gardens, urban parks, cemeteries, vacant lots, bridges, and waterways within the urban area. Villages, farms, and fields are covered in the chapter on countryside and rural areas, the forests and mountains surrounding cities in their respective chapters, the rivers and larger estuaries in wetlands, and the beaches and dunes near coastal cities in the coastal zone. Many species, such as swallows, swifts, seagulls, and bats, reappear between chapters, and this is normal.