Trapani-Paceco Salt Pans Nature Reserve

With an area of about 986 hectares, the Trapani salt pans represent a unique habitat for a highly prized birdlife and for flora, offering hospitality to over 200 animal species, as well as plant species, both macroscopic and microscopic, both endemic and widely distributed.

The natural marshes, in fact, are a precious food resource for the birds present. The salt-pan environment is the realm of the Chenopodiaceae, a family of plants that show off their beauty along the edges of the pans and in the temporary brackish marshes.

The area hosts several species (some even rare) of halophilic plants, including Maltese fungus, shrubby sea lavender, marsh marigold, various sea lavenders and the wild stock, the steppe esparto and the beach broom.

Among the birds we find: spoonbill, flamingo, great egret, glossy ibis, wigeon, pochard, teal, mallard and pintail; the nesting black-winged stilt, Kentish plover, little tern, shelduck, slender-billed gull, redshank and avocet (the symbol of the reserve). You can also observe the kestrel, the marsh harrier or the osprey hunting.