El Agujero Dam in Montes de Málaga.. not the usual hiking trek but lookout for eagles and kingfishers…

The Guadalmina river crosses the urban area of the Málaga city. In the sixteenth century changed is regime from quiet to torrential with the consequent to the people concern, due to the avenues occurred and caused injury to the population.

With the flood occurred in 1907, the river was channeling in its urban section and the construction of El Agujero Dam.

El Agujero dam was designed excluively to meet the objective of flood control, so he set out a comprehensive drainage, permanent open tunnel throught the left abutment, whaose section was responsible for limiting the discharge into the channel. Were arranged four lines channels deep, with gates that cross the body of the dam. A reservoir filled the tunnel had a capaciy of 360 m3/sec. and drains 60 m3 sec. each. The Aleppo pine is the star of the nature reserve, although the northern area, at Los Frailes, it shares the stage with black pines and stone pines. There are also small copses of holm oak, like in the Ballesteros, El Cerrado and Las Contadoras streams, that in many cases alternate with pine, wild olive trees and crops. In this atmosphere, mostly forest, the birds of prey are the dominant fauna -short-toed and booted eagles, black kites or tawny owls- although accompanied by small birds linked to the conifer. Next to water courses appear rosebay, cane, bramble, honeysuckle and tamarix with trees comprising willow, poplar, ash and elm trees that shelter common nightingales, grey wagtails and kingfishers. is located on the Guadalmina river, north of the city of Málaga, in the Montes de Málaga.

Difficulty level: Easy