Güvercinlik Nature Park

Overview

Guide

Güvercinlik Nature Park is not accepting visitors. The Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks says so in a separate notice on its page: infrastructure work is continuing and no one is being admitted. What follows describes the site for when that changes.

The park sits above the coast on the Milas-Bodrum D-330 road near the Mumcular junction, adjoining the Güvercinlik neighbourhood. The page places it in Milas district in its text and in Bodrum in its address line. It is state land with forest status under Forest Law no. 6831, first run by the ministry as a type A recreation area and declared a nature park on 5 July 2011. Its boundary has moved three times since: enlarged to 17.84 hectares in 2015, cut to 2.58 hectares by a ministerial approval of 29 December 2020, and revised to 2.65 hectares by another dated 2 March 2023. Building registration certificates have been obtained for the structures on site.

It falls inside a third-degree archaeological site and within two designated tourism centres, at Güvercinlik Bay and south of Tuzla Lake. The dominant ecosystem is forest, and the directorate counts 118 plants, 27 reptiles and amphibians, 19 mammals and 36 birds as observable across the park and its surroundings at different times of year. Red pine, kermes oak, olive, strawberry tree and Mediterranean maquis are the main plants; squirrel, hedgehog, jay, crow, yellow-legged gull, crag martin, blackbird, sparrow, tit, wood mouse and Greek tortoise the animals. The sea view and the panoramic sunset are what the directorate says are worth seeing.

Distances given are 10 kilometres to Mumcular, 20 to Bodrum, 33 to Milas town centre and 85 to Muğla city. The park is at the 30th kilometre of the Milas-Bodrum road, and the 48-6 public transport service between the two towns stops at Güvercinlik, about 500 metres away on foot.