15. Havránka Natural Monument (PP)

Part of the Prague Botanical Garden, consisting of two components: the Haltýř Valley and the Pust Vinice.Cadastre: Troja - Prague 7. Area: 4.2 ha. Elevation: 220 - 270 m above sea level. Established by the Ordinance of Prague Municipality No. 4/1982 of May 27, 1982.

Diverse communities; combination of forest steppe and heath, wetlands and flowering grasses. Habitat of thermophilous hymenopterous insects.

Shales, greywackes and Upper Proterozoic lydites, shallow and light soils of weathered rocks, flying sands and loesses, rankers to black earths.

Articulated rocky ground in the environs of the Haltýř source, including two outcrops of mineral-poor shales covered by the heath enriched with some thermophilous species such as the hedge lily (Anthericum liliago) or the cypress spurge (Tithymalus cyparissias). At present considerable upsurge of shrubs, particularly hawthorn a dog rose, as well as oaks. At the Haltýř source there is an erosion clough cut it loesses and flying sands, in the past overgrown with the community ofthe Scabiosa ochrolenca and Brachypodium pinnatum with the occurrence of Scabiosa canescens and Astragalus danicus. These communities were maintained by grazing and mowing. At present the clough is overgrown with shrubs. In the immediate proximity of the source there is a wetland community with various rush (Junctus) species.

Fairly rich sites of thermophilous insects, particularlyHymenoptera living in loess walls and slopes. Numerous steppe types of ground beetles (Carabidae) - Harpalus rufipalpis,Masoreus wetterhallii, leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) - Cryptocephalus fulvus, Timarcha goettingensis, flea beetles - Aphtona pygmaea, Longitarsus echii, the snout beetle Apion pubescens, and the apterous species of Otiorhynchus fullo, and Peritelus leucogrammus. The heath is inhabited by ground beetles (Carabidae) - Amara infima and Bradycellus ruficollis, the heather directly by the leaf beetle speciesLochmaea suturalis and Altica oleracea breddani. In the Haltýř source area there lives the rare flea-beetle species Altica palustris. Avifauna is influenced considerably by the nearby zoological garden, as a result of which also such otherwise rare species have been observed sporadically as the golden eagle (Aquila chrasaetos). The area is a nesting site of e.g. the lesser whitethroat (Sylvia curruca) the common warbler (Sylvia communis) and the reed warbler (Acrocephalus palustris).

Part of the area is covered with secondary woods of wind-swept birch, aspen, false acacia, hawthorn, etc.

The area is accessible via an educational trail of the Prague Botanical Garden. It is necessary to assure the renovation of heather population on both rock outcrops and apply controlled burning of individual parts in winter (December - end of February) in ten year cycles.

The valley has a high-yield source of water used for the needs of the Troja castle and the Zoological Garden.

Kettnerová, Kučera (1992), Kubíková (1986).

Large heather-covered areas in the Havránka natural monument.

Protected areas

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