Guide
Fatih Çeşmesi Nature Park lies within the Belgrade Forest in Eyüp, about six kilometres west of Bahçeköy and east of Kemerburgaz. It was declared a nature park in 2011 and is one of nine such parks within the Belgrade Forest, covering about 29.5 hectares. The protected area is named after the fountain that carries the name of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror.
The park is protected by the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry; under the metropolitan municipality law its protection is also among the duties of the Eyüpsultan district municipality.
The plants growing here include hornbeam, sweet chestnut, sessile oak, Türkiye oak and the Kasnak oak, with ivy, butcher's broom, bramble, rough bindweed, cherry laurel, Chinese photinia, Syrian juniper and catmint.
Across the Belgrade Forest as a whole, 282 different species have been recorded. Eighteen of these are native trees and nine are exotic trees brought in through planting; the remaining 255 belong to the shrub and herb layers. The main tree of the forest is oak.
Close to a hundred bird species and a good many mammals are observed in the Belgrade Forest. Among the birds are the buzzard, woodpeckers, the European goldfinch, the magpie and the passerines generally; among the mammals red deer, roe deer, wild boar and fox, and among the reptiles the tortoise.
The Belgrade Forest is one of the more important places in the world where bird migration concentrates, and it takes in waterbirds, raptors and songbirds during the migration season. It also holds the Levantine mole, the spur-thighed tortoise, which is globally endangered, and an endemic Turkish subspecies of the false apollo butterfly, itself a threatened species.
- Designated
- 11.07.2011
Entry fee
- Marmara group 2 · category 1 · Per person
- 75 ₺
