In the Bran­den­burg part of the low­er Oder val­ley, 140 species of mol­luscs have been iden­ti­fied, includ­ing 73 species of land gas­tropods, 46 species of water snails and 21 species of mus­sels. The low­er Oder val­ley is home to 89.5% of the mol­lusc species doc­u­ment­ed in the state of Brandenburg.

Mud snail

Weav­ing spiders

20,624 spi­ders were caught with the help of floor traps, stripe-net­ting and tap­ping screens, of which 19,313 ani­mals could be iden­ti­fied by the species. A total of 301 species have been iden­ti­fied in the last few years.

53 species (17.6%) are on the red list of endan­gered spi­ders in Ger­many. In terms of nature con­ser­va­tion, the occur­rence of the water spi­der is to be assessed as par­tic­u­lar­ly high, since it is list­ed as threat­ened with extinc­tion in the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordi­nance. Eight species are list­ed in the haz­ard cat­e­gories RL 1 and RL 2 of the Red List of Germany.

The eval­u­a­tion of the arach­no­log­i­cal data proves the extra­or­di­nary wealth of the spi­der fau­na, espe­cial­ly the high pro­por­tion of endan­gered and key species. This shows that the dry pold­er, which is used inten­sive­ly for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es, is sig­nif­i­cant­ly poor­er than the wet pold­er, both in terms of the num­ber of Red List species and in terms of the num­ber of individuals.

Dry grass­land and dry warm forests on the val­ley slopes, reed beds, wet and humid mead­ows, flood­plain and high forests as well as still waters and slow­ly flow­ing waters with pro­nounced aquat­ic plant pop­u­la­tions are the habi­tat types suit­able for spiders.

Zebra spi­der

Locusts

The locusts have only recent­ly become pop­u­lar bioindi­ca­tors for grass­land ecosys­tems. So it is not sur­pris­ing that so far there is hard­ly any local work on grasshop­per faunistics.

A total of 33 species of locusts were detect­ed in the project area, 29 of them in the core area. As part of the inves­ti­ga­tions for the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, 25 species of locusts were record­ed in 1995, includ­ing nine species of long-probe (Ensifera) and 16 species of short-probe (Caelif­era) grasshoppers.

Six species are clas­si­fied as endan­gered on Germany’s Red List, pre­dom­i­nant­ly drought-lov­ing species. In ear­li­er inves­ti­ga­tions, the only evi­dence of the steppe snake was found (Platycelis mon­tana) which is clas­si­fied as miss­ing in the Bran­den­burg Red List (RL 0). In addi­tion, five more nation­wide endan­gered (RL 3) or endan­gered species (RL 2) identified.

Most endan­gered grasshop­per species are xerophilic or mesophilic and, as the most severe species, are restrict­ed to dry grass­lands. In the val­ley low­lands, large sedge bogs with loose veg­e­ta­tion such as in the Fid­di­chow Pold­er and areas with diverse inter­link­ing of dif­fer­ent struc­ture types and mois­ture lev­els such as Crieort (Pold­er A) have favor­able con­di­tions for a mead­ow-typ­i­cal grasshop­per settlement.

Field grasshop­per

Drag­on­flies

A total of 48 drag­on­fly species were detect­ed, of which 37 species were also doc­u­ment­ed in 1995 as part of the inves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out for the care and devel­op­ment plan through imag­i­nal obser­va­tions, exu­via and lar­vae finds. Thir­teen species are on the Bran­den­burg Red List, which proves the para­mount impor­tance of the study area for the drag­on­fly fauna.

The odona­to­log­i­cal impor­tance of the low­er Oder val­ley is not only based on the 48 proven drag­on­fly species, but also on the vital repro­duc­tive pop­u­la­tion of the Asian wedge damsel (Gom­phus flavipes), the occur­rence of the com­mon wedge maid­en (Gom­phus vul­gatis­simus) and the green maid­en (Aesh­na viridis). The green maid of the mosa­ic (Aesh­na viridis) the Asi­at­ic maid­en­head lays its eggs only on the crab claws (Gom­phus flavipes) needs the sandy banks of the Oder for their lar­val devel­op­ment. Both species are list­ed as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered in the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordinance.

In the course of their devel­op­ment from egg to ima­go, the demands of drag­on­flies on their habi­tats change con­sid­er­ably. In par­tic­u­lar, the water mor­phol­o­gy, flow speed, dura­bil­i­ty of the water flow and veg­e­ta­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics are deci­sive. Impor­tant habi­tats in the study area are springy and par­tial­ly shad­ed streams, plant-rich oxbow lakes and tem­po­rary waters with chang­ing water lev­els and sandy riv­er banks.

Band­ed demoiselle

Ground bee­tle

More than 13,000 cara­bids were caught in 82 soil traps as part of the water­front strip pro­gram. From this, a total of 204 ground bee­tle species were iden­ti­fied for the core area in 1994 and 1995. Of these, 49 species are on the Red Lists of Ger­many and Bran­den­burg, includ­ing Ophonus punc­ti­col­lis and Platynus kryn­ick­ei as threat­ened with extinc­tion (RL 1), 15 more as severe­ly endan­gered species (RL 2). Nine species are spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed by the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordinance.

The most impor­tant envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors for col­o­niza­tion by ground bee­tles must first be suf­fi­cient soil mois­ture and woody stocks. In the core area, most ground bee­tles can be found on the one hand on dry grass­land loca­tions, on the oth­er hand on moist to wet open land biotopes, for exam­ple large sedge and reed bogs.

Musk buck

Wild bees

So far, 138 species of wild bees have been iden­ti­fied in the project area, 118 of which were record­ed as part of the work on the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan. A fur­ther 20 species of wild bees were found out­side the sam­ple areas of Flügel and Franke. Species that are par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy in terms of fau­na are the masked bees (Hylaeus car­diosca­pus) and the fur­row bee (Lasioglos­sum pal­lens). The fur­row bee was detect­ed for the first time in Bran­den­burg, the mask bee even for the first time in Germany.

The high pro­por­tion of endan­gered species is sig­nif­i­cant in terms of nature con­ser­va­tion. 38, i.e. 27.5% of the species found are threat­ened in the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. Over half of the detect­ed wild bee species are tied to a spe­cial nest­ing or feed­ing habitat.

The dis­tri­b­u­tion of wild bees depends on suit­able nest­ing sites, pollen plants and mate­ri­als for build­ing brood cells. Accord­ing­ly, the warm and dry habi­tats in the core area are of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance. These include dry lawns, dry pits, rud­er­al areas, rins­ing areas and dike sec­tions with sparse veg­e­ta­tion. Oth­er habi­tats that are par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for spe­cial­ized species are soft­wood mead­ows and wil­low bush­es as well as wet and wet meadows.

Bee on crocus

But­ter­flies

Of the 532 species of but­ter­flies and moths found in the core area, 120 are list­ed in the Bran­den­burg Red List. Of these, six species are clas­si­fied as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (RL 1) and 29 as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (RL 2). Accord­ing to the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordi­nance, 89 of the detect­ed species are spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed and two are threat­ened with extinc­tion. As a “kind of com­mon inter­est” is the blue guy (Lycae­na dis­par) list­ed in Annex II of the Habi­tats Direc­tive. The species is tied to exten­sive­ly used grass­land and was detect­ed out­side of the sam­ple areas on the Jungfern­berg and Sil­ber­berg (cf. Richter 1979, 1982a, 1982b, 2017).

With around 200 record­ed species, the Gellmers­dor­fer For­est and the eco­log­i­cal­ly rich­ly struc­tured Densen Moun­tains, which are pre­dom­i­nant­ly cov­ered with dry grass, have proven to be par­tic­u­lar­ly rich in species. The pold­ers, on the oth­er hand, are home to only a few species. The only inter­est­ing but­ter­fly areas here are large sedge bogs, reed beds, float­ing leaf com­mu­ni­ties, alder quar­ries and decid­u­ous forests. The grass­lands are of very lit­tle impor­tance for the but­ter­fly fau­na because they are still used inten­sive­ly. Typ­i­cal flood­plain species tied to wil­lows and poplars are rare or com­plete­ly absent, as the pupae over­win­ter­ing in the ground do not sur­vive the reg­u­lar, large-scale flood­ing in the wet pold­ers. But the more lep­i­dopter­an fau­na of the dry grass­land loca­tions also suf­fers from island­ing and species decline, so that but­ter­flies that are loy­al to the loca­tion are par­tic­u­lar­ly depen­dent on the devel­op­ment of a biotope net­work system.

Impe­r­i­al coat

Of the 45 species of fish found, 16 are only doc­u­ment­ed by indi­vid­ual finds, some of them decades ago. 27 species are record­ed on the Red Lists of Bran­den­burg and Germany.

In the last few years the Wild Fish Sec­tion in Schwedt has repeat­ed­ly car­ried out stock-tak­ing and iden­ti­fied 38 species by 1991 (Beschnidt 1991, 1995). In terms of nature con­ser­va­tion, the abun­dant occur­rences of the nation­al­ly threat­ened bit­ter­ling species are par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant (Rhodeus sericeus amarus), Loach (Cobitis tae­nia), Mud whip (Mis­gur­nus fos­silis) and Zope (Abramis ballerus) as well as the reg­u­lar indi­vid­ual finds of sea trout (Salmo trut­ta) and the riv­er lam­prey (Lam­pe­tra flu­vi­atilis).

As part of the inves­ti­ga­tions for the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, 25,000 fish were caught on 63 rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple stretch­es. Very dif­fer­ent meth­ods were used, from elec­tric fish­ing to pulling, sink­ing and gill­net fish­ing to fish­ing traps and hand nets. A total of 28 species of fish, includ­ing 18 species on the Bran­den­burg Red List, were iden­ti­fied in this way.

The roach (Rutilus rutilus) with 15,000 ani­mals, more than 1,000 spec­i­mens were from the perch (Per­ca flu­vi­atilis) and from the bream (Blic­ca bjo­erk­na) caught while Aland (Leu­cis­cus idus), Pike (Esox Lucius), Rudd (Scar­dinius ery­throph­tal­mus) and bleak (Albur­nus albur­nus) with over 500 copies each. Bit­ter­ling (Rhodeus sericeus amarus), Com­mon bream (Abramis bra­ma), Gud­geon (Gob­io gob­io), Ruff (Gym­no­cephalus cer­nua), Bur­bot (Lota lota), Tench (Tin­ca tin­ca), Loach (Cobitis tae­nia) and Zope (Abramis ballerus) could still be proven with more than 100 copies.

Com­mon bream

The occur­rence and dis­tri­b­u­tion of fish species are deter­mined by their species-spe­cif­ic con­nec­tion to main habi­tat types and the require­ments for spawn­ing grounds. The pop­u­la­tions of plant-spawn­ing still water dwellers in the study area are opti­mal­ly devel­oped. Marin-limnic species occur, apart from eel (Anguil­la anguil­la) and smelt (Osmerus eper­lanus), only as sin­gle copies. Flow-lov­ing grav­el spawn­ers do not find any spawn­ing grounds in the area and, with a few excep­tions, only occur as indi­vid­ual spec­i­mens that have migrat­ed. For the repro­duc­tion of the pike (Esox Lucius) the flood­ing of the spawn­ing mead­ows in spring is par­tic­u­lar­ly important.

The two main waters of the Oder and Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler Wasser­straße, the lake-like and elon­gat­ed pold­er waters, the ditch­es in the south of the core area, the Oder fore­land waters and the low­er reach­es of the Salvey­bach are impor­tant for fish ecol­o­gy. From a nature con­ser­va­tion point of view, the evi­dence of cur­rent­ly still safe, high-indi­vid­ual pop­u­la­tions of bit­ter­ling in the study area is sig­nif­i­cant (Rhodeus sericeus amarus), Bur­bot (Lota lota), Mud whip (Mis­gur­nus fos­silis), Loach (Cobitis tae­nia) and Zope (Abramis ballerus). These species, which are threat­ened nation­wide and in the state of Bran­den­burg, have a spe­cial indi­ca­tor func­tion for the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan because of their high demands on their habi­tat. Some of them are described below in alpha­bet­i­cal order:

Eel (Anguil­la anguil­la): 64 spec­i­mens of the eel were detect­ed on 27 test stretch­es. As a habi­tat, he prefers run­ning and still waters that are con­nect­ed to the sea. Stock­ing mea­sures also lead to it get­ting into iso­lat­ed waters. It col­o­nizes bod­ies of water from the brack­ish water zone up to a height of 1,000 m. His way of life is soil-ori­ent­ed. Dur­ing the day it hides between roots, water plants or hol­lows. With the onset of dusk it becomes active and goes in search of food. Eels are very adapt­able to water pol­lu­tion and hydraulic engi­neer­ing mea­sures. To spawn, the ani­mals migrate 5,000 to 7,000 kilo­me­ters into the west­ern Atlantic from July to Octo­ber. They release the eggs at a great depth. The par­ents prob­a­bly die after­wards. The elon­gat­ed lar­vae, about 6 mil­lime­ters in size, devel­op from the eggs and drift with the Gulf Stream to Europe with­in three years. In doing so, they change their appear­ance, devel­op­ing into wil­low leaf-like, trans­par­ent Lep­to­cephalus lar­vae over the course of the months. When they reach the coast, they trans­form into glass eels around 65 mil­lime­ters in size. These climb up the rivers as so-called Steigaale even over larg­er obsta­cles, where­by many of them per­ish. The eel is clas­si­fied as poten­tial­ly endan­gered in the Bran­den­burg Red List (RL 4) and as endan­gered in the Fed­er­al Red List (RL 3). Although a denser eel pop­u­la­tion could be expect­ed in the study area due to the water struc­ture and the water qual­i­ty, due to the spa­tial­ly wide life cycle an assess­ment of the risk sit­u­a­tion for a rel­a­tive­ly lim­it­ed habi­tat is not possible.

Riv­er eel

Aland (Leu­cis­cus idus): The Aland was proven in 724 copies on 44 test stretch­es. It prefers medi­um to large rivers and lakes as a habi­tat and lives socia­ble, often in schools. Very old ani­mals some­times appear as soli­tary ani­mals. From March to May the mature ani­mals migrate upstream, each female lays 40,000 to 100,000 eggs. They stick to plants and stones. The diet con­sists of worms, small crus­taceans and insect lar­vae. In the Red Lists of Bran­den­burg and Ger­many, the Aland is list­ed as endan­gered (RL 3). The stock sit­u­a­tion in the study area is favor­able and any risk can cur­rent­ly be ruled out.

Bit­ter­ling (Rhodeus sericeus amarus): 331 spec­i­mens of the bit­ter­ling were caught on 13 test stretch­es. It prefers plant-rich bank regions of stag­nant and slow­ly flow­ing waters with sandy to mud­dy bot­toms. It is a socia­ble species of small fish that needs mus­sels to repro­duce. In the spawn­ing sea­son between April and June, the male leads a female to a select­ed mus­sel that is defend­ed against com­pet­ing pairs. By means of the lay­ing tube, which the female inserts into the out­flow open­ing of the mus­sel, a few eggs are placed between the mus­sel gill lamel­lae dur­ing the repeat­ed­ly repeat­ed spawn­ing process. Then the male releas­es his semen via the inlet open­ing of the mus­sel, which is then washed to the eggs by the water flow. Females can lay 40 to 100 eggs per spawn­ing peri­od. The devel­op­ment of the embryos takes place in the gill space of the mus­sel. After two to three weeks, the fish lar­vae hatch and then leave the mus­sel a lit­tle lat­er as buoy­ant fry. The lar­vae then around 10 mm in size ini­tial­ly feed on plank­ton. When the ani­mals have grown up, they eat small inver­te­brates and algae. The bit­ter­ling was also only detect­ed in the pold­er waters, both in the dry pold­er and in the wet pold­er. The Bran­den­burg Red List lists it as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (RL 1), the Ger­man Red List as an endan­gered species (RL 2). It is not endan­gered in the study area itself.

Perch (Per­ca flu­vi­atilis): 3,925 spec­i­mens of the perch were caught on 60 test stretch­es. As a habi­tat, it pop­u­lates a wide range of flow­ing and still waters. It occurs from brack­ish water areas to moun­tain waters at an alti­tude of 1,000 m. The biol­o­gy of this species is char­ac­ter­ized by its great adapt­abil­i­ty to dif­fer­ent envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions. In their youth the perch are swarm-form­ing, in old age they appear as soli­tary ani­mals. To hunt, the perch often form hunt­ing par­ties and dri­ve oth­er fish into groups in order to then advance on the prey. Spawn­ing time is between March and April, the eggs are laid in the form of up to 1 m long gelati­nous bands in the bank area on plants, roots and stones. Young perch eat small inver­te­brates, old­er perch most­ly fish.

Perch

Pike (Esox Lucius): 597 spec­i­mens of the pike were found on 51 test stretch­es. As a habi­tat, it prefers slow­ly flow­ing rivers with still water zones, oxbow lakes and oxbow lakes. He loves clear, herba­ceous shal­low lakes with a grav­el bot­tom. It can col­o­nize bod­ies of water from brack­ish water up to an alti­tude of 1,500 m. The pike is a preda­to­ry fish that is true to its loca­tion and that forms its ter­ri­to­ry and that does not allow any oth­er species to enter its ter­ri­to­ry. As a lon­er, it lurks motion­less in hid­ing for prey. Due to its col­or­ing and behav­ior, it is so well cam­ou­flaged that fish and oth­er prey swim close to it with­out notic­ing it. Pike spawn between Feb­ru­ary and May in weed-rich shal­low water zones, flood­ed river­bank mead­ows and in ditch­es. The sticky eggs are laid on blades of grass and water plants. Depend­ing on the water tem­per­a­ture, the lar­vae hatch after 10 to 30 days. The brood feeds on small crus­taceans, lat­er on insect lar­vae and inver­te­brates. For larg­er pike, fish are the main food. In addi­tion, crabs, frogs, water birds and small mam­mals are also eat­en. In the Stro­mod­er and in the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler Wasser­straße the pike was found com­par­a­tive­ly rarely, but it was often found in the Oder fore­land waters of the dry pold­er. While it is rare in the dry pold­er itself, it is more com­mon in the Criewen pold­er, even more numer­ous in the Schwedt pold­er and most often in the Fid­di­chow pold­er. Both juve­niles and adults were detect­ed every­where. The lat­ter pre­ferred the large lake-like bod­ies of water, while the juve­niles stayed main­ly in the heav­i­ly weed, elon­gat­ed, rivers-like ditch­es. In the Red Lists of Bran­den­burg and Ger­many, the pike is list­ed as endan­gered (RL 3).

Pike

Roach (Rutilus rutilus): A total of 15,331 indi­vid­u­als from the roach were caught on 60 test stretch­es. This makes it by far the most com­mon fish in the low­er Oder val­ley. Their habi­tat is stand­ing and slow­ly flow­ing water. It can also pen­e­trate the brack­ish water. It is con­sid­ered to be an adapt­able school­ing fish that is rel­a­tive­ly insen­si­tive to water pol­lu­tion. It can be found reg­u­lar­ly in grassy bank areas and in open water. If there is no preda­to­ry fish pop­u­la­tion, it tends to devel­op in mass­es and then to fod­der. The spawn­ing sea­son is between May and April, the spawn­ing schools pre­fer to lay their eggs in shal­low water on plants, roots and stones. Depend­ing on their size, the females lay 50,000 to 100,000 eggs. The lar­vae that hatch after four to ten days first use up their yolk sac and lat­er eat plank­ton and small invertebrates.

Bur­bot (Lota lota): The bur­bot was detect­ed with 341 spec­i­mens on 27 test stretch­es. It col­o­nizes around half of all inves­ti­gat­ed water bod­ies. As a habi­tat, it prefers lakes and rivers, espe­cial­ly cool, clear and oxy­gen-rich water. It occurs from brack­ish water up to an alti­tude of 1,200 m. The bur­bot is a noc­tur­nal bot­tom fish. It spawns between Novem­ber and March after some very pro­nounced spawn­ing migra­tions. The eggs con­tain an oil ball and are plank­ton­ic. The devel­op­ment time is between 45 and 75 days, depend­ing on the water tem­per­a­ture. The bur­bot is clas­si­fied as endan­gered (RL 2) in the Bran­den­burg Red List as well as in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Strong stock slumps char­ac­ter­ize the risk sit­u­a­tion nation­wide. In many areas the stocks are almost extinct. As with the Zope, hydraulic engi­neer­ing mea­sures and water pol­lu­tion in par­tic­u­lar are respon­si­ble for the decline in the pop­u­la­tion. Only a few bod­ies of water still have intact pop­u­la­tions. The bur­bot is a non-endan­gered species in the study area. The age struc­ture sug­gests suit­able repro­duc­tive con­di­tions. The water qual­i­ty does not seem to have a neg­a­tive impact on the pop­u­la­tion either.

Bur­bot

Mud whip (Mis­gur­nus fos­silis): The mud whip was detect­ed in 25 spec­i­mens on 5 test stretch­es. As a habi­tat, it prefers plant-rich still waters, ponds, ponds as well as ripar­i­an zones, oxbow lakes and flood­plains of rivers. It can also be found in slow­ly flow­ing mead­ow ditch­es and streams. The mud whip is a noc­tur­nal, sta­tion­ary bot­tom fish. Dur­ing the day it hides close to the ground between aquat­ic plants, roots or in the mud. Since it can cov­er up to two thirds of its oxy­gen needs with the help of its skin breath­ing, it is adapt­ed to these liv­ing con­di­tions. The mud whip can bridge a major lack of oxy­gen in the water by swal­low­ing air in the intes­tine, which is rich in blood ves­sels. The used air is expelled through the anus. The ani­mals sur­vive a dry fall of the res­i­den­tial water for sev­er­al months, buried up to 75 cm deep in the ground. Dur­ing the spawn­ing sea­son between April and June, the sticky, brown­ish eggs (up to 150,000 pieces) are laid on aquat­ic plants. The lar­vae have thread-like out­er gills. The food is made up of small inver­te­brates and decay­ing parts of plants as well as car­rion. The Schlamm­peitzger also only inhab­its the pold­er waters, espe­cial­ly small­er, heav­i­ly weed and mud­dy ditches.

Wolff­ish (Cobitis tae­nia): The wolff­ish was detect­ed on 29 test stretch­es with 163 spec­i­mens. As a habi­tat, it prefers clear streams, rivers and the shore­line of sandy lakes. He is a sta­tion­ary bot­tom fish. The ani­mals bur­row up to their heads dur­ing the day to search the ground for food at dusk and at night. With the help of the whiskers they find their food, which con­sists of small ani­mals such as rotifers, hip­popota­mus­es, water fleas and mus­sel crabs, but also of dead organ­ic com­po­nents. The spawn­ing sea­son is between April and June. The sticky eggs are laid on stones, roots and aquat­ic plants. In the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler Wasser­straße, the wolff­ish was rarely found, in the Oder spo­rad­i­cal­ly. The main focus of its dis­tri­b­u­tion is in the pold­er waters, in the dry pold­ers as well as in the wet pold­ers. The wolff­ish is most com­mon in the Schwedter Pold­er, less often in the Criewen­er Pold­er and only spo­rad­i­cal­ly in the Fid­di­chow Pold­er. There it pop­u­lates main­ly small­er, elon­gat­ed, flow­ing water-like types of water. Both young and adult ani­mals were detect­ed in all test stretch­es in the pold­er area, so that nor­mal repro­duc­tion in the exam­i­na­tion area can be assumed. The Red List of Bran­den­burg and Ger­many clas­si­fies the wolff­ish as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (RL 2). This risk does not cur­rent­ly apply to the study area.

Stein­beiss­er

Bleak (Albur­nus albur­nus): 624 indi­vid­u­als of the bleak were caught on 31 test stretch­es. Their pre­ferred habi­tat are stag­nant and slow­ly flow­ing waters. It is a sur­face-ori­ent­ed school­ing fish that can be found reg­u­lar­ly even in the mid­dle of the water. Like most oth­er species, it has its main dis­tri­b­u­tion near the shore. Mass occur­rences are typ­i­cal of bleak. Dur­ing the spawn­ing sea­son between April and June, the fish seek out shal­low banks, where they lay around 1,000 to 1,500 eggs on stones, roots and plants. The food is made up of small inver­te­brates, approach­ing insects and plank­ton. The bleak is list­ed in the Bran­den­burg Red List as an endan­gered species (RL 3), at the fed­er­al lev­el it is not endangered.

Zope (Abramis ballerus): A total of 470 spec­i­mens of the Zope were caught on two test stretch­es exclu­sive­ly with trac­tion nets. It is con­sid­ered to be an open water species of the slow­ly flow­ing low­land waters, riv­er lakes and rarely also of the brack­ish water zones. Dur­ing the spawn­ing sea­son between April and May, the zopes migrate upriv­er to spawn in groups between shal­low, flowed-through aquat­ic plants or flood­ed land plants. 4,000 to 25,000 sticky eggs adher­ing to the plants are giv­en off per female. The food in the riv­er con­sists main­ly of plank­ton, crus­taceans and insect lar­vae. In win­ter, when there is lit­tle plank­ton sup­ply, the zope retreats into deep areas of the water. It is on the Bran­den­burg Red List as crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered (RL 2) and on the Red List of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many as endan­gered (RL 3). The declin­ing pop­u­la­tion devel­op­ment can be attrib­uted to the reduc­tion in suit­able spawn­ing waters. It cur­rent­ly appears to be safe in the study area.

Of course, it is dif­fi­cult to cat­e­go­rize the water loca­tions accord­ing to their suit­abil­i­ty for the fish fau­na. Dis­tin­guish­ing the Oder, the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthal water­way and the pold­er waters, one can nev­er­the­less make the fol­low­ing generalizations:

In the Oder the bio­di­ver­si­ty was below aver­age on the bank sec­tions for­ti­fied with pro­tec­tive stones with­out reeds and woody veg­e­ta­tion. The roach usu­al­ly dom­i­nates here, while demand­ing species such as the wolff­ish do not occur.

On the Oder, the stretch­es of water between the groyne fields and in the sec­tions with heav­i­ly over­grown ripar­i­an zones orig­i­nal­ly built with rock fill­ings are of aver­age impor­tance. They all have rel­a­tive­ly nat­ur­al bank struc­tures. Trees or dense reeds are char­ac­ter­is­tic here, the dom­i­nance of the roach is less devel­oped. Due to the more fre­quent occur­rence of oth­er species, the species struc­ture is gen­er­al­ly more bal­anced. The wolff­ish and bur­bot reg­u­lar­ly appear as species with spe­cial indi­ca­tor significance.

From a fish-eco­log­i­cal point of view, on the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler Wasser­straße, only below-aver­age test stretch­es can be detect­ed in the nar­row, chan­nel-like sec­tions for­ti­fied with pro­tec­tive stones. Aver­age sig­nif­i­cant test stretch­es are locat­ed in areas where the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler water­way runs through old branch­es of the Oder and there­fore nat­ur­al pro­files and bank shapes pre­dom­i­nate. With the pold­er waters of dif­fer­ent types and sizes, the heav­i­ly silt­ed and shal­low lake areas with a low den­si­ty of aquat­ic plants can be described as below aver­age. Roach and perch dom­i­nate here, while more demand­ing species such as bit­ter­ling and wolff­ish are absent. The aver­age sig­nif­i­cant areas are most­ly locat­ed on larg­er lakes, which have more pro­nounced depths in the shal­low water zones. The shal­low water zones are most­ly made up of aquat­ic plants, the banks often used as pas­ture right up to the water. Lakes with a typ­i­cal zon­ing of aquat­ic plants and with at least par­tial­ly tree-lined banks are of above-aver­age impor­tance. Shal­low water zones and depth areas are in a bal­anced rela­tion­ship. The occur­rence of wolff­ish and bit­ter­ling as well as of the still water species rudd and tench is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the test stretches.

While no spe­cif­ic inves­ti­ga­tions of the amphib­ian fau­na were car­ried out in the Oder­aue itself until the mid-1990s, the Schwedt biol­o­gy teacher, Jörg Wilke, began reg­u­lar­ly with his stu­dents to map the small bod­ies of water (Feld­sölle) of the hill coun­try in the east of Bavaria as ear­ly as the mid-1980s.

Dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions for the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, a total of ten amphib­ian species were iden­ti­fied by inter­ro­gat­ing the voic­es and search­ing for suit­able bod­ies of water — each test area was vis­it­ed sev­en to nine times in the spring, includ­ing two at night. eleven species are cur­rent­ly found in the nation­al park area (HAFERLAND 2012). All are under the pro­tec­tion of the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordi­nance. Nine species are on the Red Lists of Ger­many and Bran­den­burg, five in the Habi­tats Direc­tive. The amphib­ian species are named in decreas­ing fre­quen­cy: pond frog (Rana kl. escu­len­ta), Sea frog (Rana ridi­bun­da), Com­mon toad (Bufo bufo), Moor Frog (Rana arvalis), Com­mon frog (Rana tem­po­raria), Com­mon gar­lic toad (Pelo­bates fus­cus), Fire-bel­lied toad (Bombi­na bombi­na), Pond newt (Trit­u­rus vul­garis) and Tree frog (Hyla arborea). The green toad (Bufo viridis) was only found out­side of the sam­ple areas at the time, at present this species is occa­sion­al­ly found in the south­ern part of the nation­al park (HAFERLAND 2012). Half of the amphib­ian species native to the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many are found in the project area, 14 of them live in Bran­den­burg. The crest­ed newt (Trit­u­rus crista­tus) and the lit­tle water frog (Rana lesson­ae), which Wilke (1995) was able to detect in the Schwedt / Anger­münde area, were not found in the core area.

The two green frogs were found in all study areas, and the com­mon toad was also quite wide­spread. Fire-bel­lied toad, tree frog, com­mon gar­lic toad and moor frog avoid the low-lying parts of the wet pold­ers. They have their dis­tri­b­u­tion focus in the area of the Lunow-Stolper Pold­er (dry pold­er), but increas­ing­ly col­o­nize the flood pold­ers and expand their area of occur­rence, like the tree frog, to the north. Com­mon toads and com­mon frogs pre­fer to set­tle in the mead­ows and wet forests at the foot of the val­ley slopes north and south of Stolpe.

Tree frog

A typ­i­cal, species-rich amphib­ian body of water has clean water, pro­nounced shal­low water zones with sub­merged veg­e­ta­tion and a struc­ture-rich envi­ron­ment. Amphib­ians over­win­ter in frost-pro­tect­ed places, most of them bur­row on land in crevices and hol­lows. The cold-blood­ed ani­mals sur­vive the cold sea­son by falling into cold rigidity.

Short-term floods and increas­es in the ground­wa­ter lev­el are tol­er­at­ed by all species dur­ing this peri­od. Long-term floods drown many of the amphib­ians that nor­mal­ly hiber­nate in the coun­try­side. The sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent with the sea frog and the pond frog, which over­win­ter in the water. Their pop­u­la­tions are not per­ma­nent­ly affect­ed by the win­ter floods.

Because of the species-rich amphib­ian pop­u­la­tion, the Lunow-Stolper Pold­er, the Oder fore­land along this pold­er and the Crieort area are par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant. The sur­veys show how impor­tant the dry pold­er is, espe­cial­ly for amphib­ians.

For rep­tiles, too, there were no sys­tem­at­ic inves­ti­ga­tions in the low­er Oder val­ley until the ear­ly 1990s, only ran­dom obser­va­tions by vol­un­teer con­ser­va­tion­ists and the nature watch. As part of the inves­ti­ga­tions for the care and devel­op­ment plan, a total of four types of rep­tiles could be iden­ti­fied through tar­get­ed search­es for exist­ing hid­ing places and the con­struc­tion of arti­fi­cial hid­ing places: The sand lizard (Lac­er­ta agilis) was par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mon on the dry slopes, but was also found occa­sion­al­ly in the pold­er area. The for­est lizard (Lac­er­ta vivip­a­ra) could only be found on two areas on the edge of wet mead­ows, the slow worm (Anguis frag­ilis) can only be observed on the dry grass­land and hill­side for­est loca­tions, while the grass snake (Natrix natrix) occurs almost every­where in the pold­er area.

Lizard

There is also an ear­li­er evi­dence of the smooth snake from the low­er Oder val­ley (Coro­nel­la aus­tri­a­ca) (1989), three spec­i­mens of the Euro­pean pond tur­tle (Emys orbic­u­laris) have been dis­cov­ered in the Criewen­er pold­er, i.e. a total of six rep­tile species since 1989 that are threat­ened accord­ing to the Red List of the State of Bran­den­burg and are pro­tect­ed by the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordinance.

The large pop­u­la­tion of sand lizards and grass snakes can be clas­si­fied as nation­al­ly impor­tant. Oth­er­wise, wet pold­ers in par­tic­u­lar are not suit­able rep­tile habi­tats, not least because of the reg­u­lar flood­ing that only the swim­ming grass snake can cope with. But it also needs flood-proof win­ter quarters.

From the point of view of rep­tile pro­tec­tion, the dry grass­land and flush­ing sand areas close to the water are impor­tant as poten­tial egg-lay­ing places for the pond tur­tle, while the val­ley flanks with their exposed dry grass­land and dry forests are impor­tant habi­tats for the sand lizard.

Grass snake

• Birds by habitat: 
  • Wet mead­ows
  • Waters
  • Reeds
  • Woods
  • Decid­u­ous & mixed decid­u­ous forest
  • Xeric grass­lands
• Water bird census

As part of the prepa­ra­tion of the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, a com­pre­hen­sive map of the key species was cre­at­ed for the breed­ing birds. This list of all breed­ing birds observed in the area since 1961 includ­ed 161 species, 141 of which brood reg­u­lar­ly. This list of species has been thor­ough­ly revised in recent years (HAFERLAND 2010, 2012) and cur­rent­ly includes 293 species that have been iden­ti­fied with­in the bound­aries of the nation­al park. 63 species (includ­ing 51 as breed­ing birds) are on Brandenburg’s Red List, 46 on Germany’s Red List, 18 species are threat­ened with extinc­tion accord­ing to the Fed­er­al Species Pro­tec­tion Ordi­nance, 51 are list­ed as par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­thy of pro­tec­tion in the EU Birds Direc­tive (see Table 2). At least 14 species have over 10% of their Bran­den­burg breed­ing pop­u­la­tion in the low­er Oder Val­ley, i.e. 0.3% of the land area, with the Black Tern (Chli­do­nias niger) it is even 30 %, in the case of the Corn Crake 17% of the glob­al­ly endan­gered Ger­man population.

The 147 species cur­rent­ly breed­ing reg­u­lar­ly in the area com­prise 85% of Brandenburg’s breed­ing bird species. Of these, 17 species are in the endan­ger­ment cat­e­gories (RL 1) and (RL 2) the Red List of Germany.

On the sam­ple plots at that time, set­tle­ment den­si­ties were found for many of the more com­mon song­birds, which are among the high­est in Cen­tral Euro­pean com­par­i­son. For 14 migra­to­ry bird species, the one per­cent cri­te­ri­on of the Ram­sar Con­ven­tion is exceed­ed reg­u­lar­ly or in indi­vid­ual years. It states that at least 1% of a large pop­u­la­tion reg­u­lar­ly rest in an area. The project area is also of nation­wide impor­tance for ruff due to the high num­ber of indi­vid­u­als dur­ing the migra­tion peri­od (Philo­machus pug­nax), Com­mon Snipe (Gal­li­na­go gal­li­na­go), Wood sand­piper (Tringa ochro­pus), Minia­ture snipe (Lym­nocryptes min­imus) and water pip­it (Anthus spin­o­let­ta). The Corn Crake (Crex crex) has one of its largest deposits in Ger­many in the low­er Oder val­ley. 30 per­cent of the Ger­man black tern breed­ing pop­u­la­tion (Chli­do­nias niger) are locat­ed in the low­er Oder val­ley. The reed war­bler (Acro­cephalus palu­di­co) only occurs in Ger­many in the low­er Oder val­ley with males singing irreg­u­lar­ly at present.

Over ten per­cent of the Bran­den­burg breed­ing pop­u­la­tion is con­cen­trat­ed in the low­er Oder val­ley for a fur­ther eleven species. Of these, sprouts reach here (Lus­cinia lus­cinia), Schlagschwirl (Locustel­la flu­vi­atilis) and carmine pen­nants (Car­po­da­cus ery­thri­nus) their cur­rent west­ern lim­it of dis­tri­b­u­tion. The Goosander (Mer­gus mer­ganser) has its largest occur­rence in the low­er Oder val­ley and expands it every year. The cor­morant (Pha­lacro­co­rax car­bo) The estab­lish­ment of a larg­er breed­ing colony at the Wrech­see near Schwedt in the low­er Oder val­ley was not suc­cess­ful until 1994, after sev­er­al breed­ing attempts in the pre­vi­ous years had been thwart­ed by active deterrence.

Wet pold­ers with back­wa­ters, dry grass­lands with bush­es and near-nat­ur­al for­est stands are of par­tic­u­lar ornitho­log­i­cal impor­tance. Since espe­cial­ly many bird lovers vis­it the low­er Oder val­ley, it seems to be use­ful to go into some par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing species, sort­ed by habi­tat, in more detail. The begin­ning is made by the biotopes of the Oder floodplain.

A cur­rent anno­tat­ed list of species can be found at HAFERLAND, H.-J. (2010): List of species of birds in the Low­er Oder­tal Nation­al Park, In: Vöss­ing, A. (Ed.) Low­er Oder­tal Nation­al Park Year­book (7), 115–130, Low­er Oder­tal Nation­al Park Foun­da­tion, Criewen Cas­tle, Schwedt / O. This list was sup­ple­ment­ed in 2012 (HAFERLAND 2012).

The lap­wing (Vanel­lus vanel­lus) prefers not too high and not too dense veg­e­ta­tion on cul­ti­vat­ed mead­ows and pas­tures with water­log­ging points for its set­tle­ment. Accord­ing­ly, the lap­wing occurs pri­mar­i­ly in the wet pold­ers, where it con­cen­trates on the wettest areas, in par­tic­u­lar on the depres­sions in front of the paper mill in Fid­di­chow­er and in the Schwedter pold­er. By quick­ly pump­ing out the water, part of the lap­wing ter­ri­to­ry is left again lat­er. In the dry pold­er, in addi­tion to the humid Odor fore­land, water­log­ging areas are pop­u­lat­ed in the arable land, but hard­ly the cul­ti­vat­ed grass­land. In the Friedrich­sthaler Pold­er there is a con­cen­tra­tion on moist, but still used grassland.

Lap­wing

The Com­mon snipe (Gal­li­na­go gal­li­na­go) prefers a rather high veg­e­ta­tion, glad­ly also uncul­ti­vat­ed areas, for exam­ple very moist, water­logged mead­ows. It is well rep­re­sent­ed in the Fid­di­chow­er and Friedrich­sthaler pold­er, in the dry pold­er it con­cen­trates on the few wet areas. For the com­mon snipe, too, a pos­si­ble breed­ing suc­cess is often negat­ed by the ear­ly pump­ing out of the wet pold­ers (KUBE 1988A and B, DITTBERNER 2014).

Com­mon snipe

The habi­tat The Great curlew (Nume­nius arqua­ta) are spa­cious, moist, as short-grassed as pos­si­ble and not too dense mead­ows and pas­tures with water­log­ging points and open water. Of the mead­ow cli­mates, the curlew is most like­ly to tol­er­ate some­what more inten­sive man­age­ment. The few breed­ing pairs in the low­er Oder val­ley are lim­it­ed to the Friedrich­sthaler pold­er south of Gartz (Oder).

Great curlew

Sim­i­lar to the black god­wit and lap­wing, the col­o­nizes Red­shank (Tringa totanus) moist, not too tall and dense grass­land. Larg­er water­log­ging areas with mud­dy banks and clear veg­e­ta­tion are impor­tant. The red­shank occurs main­ly in the wet pold­ers, but some pairs also breed in the Friedrich­sthaler pold­er and in the Oder­vor­land Lunow-Stolzenhagen.

Red­shank

The Corn Crake (Crex crex) col­o­nizes grass­land with a veg­e­ta­tion height of 30 to 50 cm and with near-ground, dense, but still pen­e­tra­ble veg­e­ta­tion on moist, but not flood­ed ground. After his arrival (at the end of April) at the begin­ning of May, it ini­tial­ly occu­pied rel­a­tive­ly tall water swathes, reed grass mead­ows and sedge mead­ows, while increased immi­gra­tion to fox­tail mead­ows occurs in the course of spring. Both humid depres­sions and ele­vat­ed and some­what dri­er areas in the grass­land as well as indi­vid­ual bush­es that it uses as a singing area, as well as high shrub fringes that it uses as moult­ing areas after the breed­ing sea­son are favor­able for the corn­crake. The low­er Oder val­ley is one of the most impor­tant breed­ing areas of the corn­crake in Ger­many. Most birds breed in the wet pold­er. The Friedrich­sthaler Pold­er has been increas­ing­ly pop­u­lat­ed for some years now, in the dry pold­er call­ing ani­mals are found in a few moist places and, above all, repeat­ed­ly in the Oder foothills. Above all, the corn­crake can be found on the Lange Rehne, on the Heuzug and in the Schwedt polder.

Corn Crake

The last breed­ing areas The Sedge War­bler (Acro­cephalus palu­di­co­la) are lim­it­ed to pold­er 5/6, where exten­sive mea­sures have been car­ried out in recent years as part of an E + E project to pre­serve and restore habi­tats of the species. This glob­al­ly threat­ened bird species pop­u­lates grass­land areas with moist to wet ground and sedge stocks. The sedges, espe­cial­ly Carex gra­cilis, can form large areas or be lim­it­ed to small­er island-like occur­rences in cane grass mead­ows. Reg­u­lar singing places have even been estab­lished in pure, high-growth reed grass mead­ows with­out sedges.

Sedge War­bler

The Red-necked grebe (Podi­ceps grisege­na) does not love deep, sun­ny waters with dense sub­merged veg­e­ta­tion and float­ing leaf plants, espe­cial­ly small­er bod­ies of water, such as field col­lars, oxbow lakes and flood plains. As a breed­ing bird, the red-necked grebe is restrict­ed to the wet pold­ers in the low­er Oder val­ley. Most attempts to set­tle in pold­er A / B on flood­ed mead­ows fail because the wet pold­er areas are pumped out.

Red-necked grebe

Of theKing­fish­er (Alcedo atthis) loves waters rich in small fish with suit­able perch. Breed­ing sites are found in the edges of rivers and ditch­es, at exca­va­tion sites or in the root plates of fall­en trees. In the low­er Oder val­ley, the king­fish­er is dis­trib­uted fair­ly even­ly over the entire area. Breed­ing sites are known both on oxbow lakes in the pold­er and in the hill­side forests.

King­fish­er

The Black Tern (Chli­do­nias niger) As a colony breed­er, spe­cial­izes in the col­o­niza­tion of stand­ing waters and oxbow lakes with pro­nounced float­ing leaf veg­e­ta­tion, in the past espe­cial­ly cray­fish claws, today most­ly sea or pond ros­es (cf. Krummholz and Krätke 1982) or in arti­fi­cial nest­ing aids. It also breeds on grass or bent reed bulbs or small patch­es of mud on the bank. If exten­sive and per­ma­nent­ly flood­ed mead­ows are avail­able, black terns use pro­trud­ing grass bulbs from them as breed­ing grounds. This was reg­is­tered in the low­er Oder Val­ley, for exam­ple, in 1994 dur­ing the long-term flood­ing (Grimm 1995). How­ev­er, there was no breed­ing suc­cess due to the pump­ing out of the wet pold­er. In the low­er Oder val­ley, the black tern breed main­ly in small­er colonies on many oxbow sec­tions, for exam­ple in the Criewen­er or the Schwedt pold­er. These small­er colonies are extreme­ly sen­si­tive to dis­tur­bances. The stock is sub­ject to strong fluc­tu­a­tions every year, which can be traced back to var­i­ous caus­es. In 2017, for exam­ple, Black Terns brood­ed in sev­en places with a total of 215 pairs, with around 140 sweaters hatch­ing, of which at least 72 fledged (Krummholz, unpublished).

Black Tern

That Bluethroat (Lus­cinia sve­ci­ca) finds good liv­ing con­di­tions in the low­er Oder val­ley. As a breed­ing ground, it prefers silt­ing areas with reed beds and wil­low bush­es. Places with sparse veg­e­ta­tion for for­ag­ing on the ground, free access to the water, but also areas with dense veg­e­ta­tion rich in cov­er are impor­tant. These con­di­tions are met above all by young suc­ces­sion stages, as they arise again and again, in par­tic­u­lar due to the dynam­ic process­es of a flow­ing water. In Bran­den­burg, the species is large­ly restrict­ed to the flood­plains and some larg­er lakes, while in oth­er areas of Ger­many sec­ondary biotopes and increas­ing­ly even ditch­es in the agri­cul­tur­al land­scape are often pop­u­lat­ed. In the low­er Oder val­ley the Bluethroats breed main­ly in the Fid­di­chow­er pold­er near Friedrich­sthal, but also occa­sion­al­ly in the dry polder.

White-starred bluethroat

The Feld­schwirl (Locustel­la nae­via) breeds in grass and tall herba­ceous mead­ows in the open and semi-open land­scape. The herb lay­er must be dense, but pen­e­tra­ble at the bot­tom and have pro­trud­ing stalks as a singing point. In the low­er Oder val­ley, it breeds in the pold­ers on the edge of the reed beds as well as on paths and ditch­es and in the moist grass­land areas, pre­fer­ring fal­low mead­ows and pas­tures. It also breeds on the edges of the soft­wood flood­plains, for exam­ple on the north­ern edge of the Schwedter Quer­fahrt and north­east of Crieort, in the val­ley edge areas also in open spring bogs and in tall herba­ceous areas on dry grass­lands. The species ben­e­fits from the cre­ation of wilder­ness zones and exten­sive grass­land use.

The Rohrschwirl (Locustel­la lus­cin­ioides) usu­al­ly nests in larg­er reeds. The land­side areas with a dense soil lay­er of sedges and herbs as well as old reeds are pre­ferred to be pop­u­lat­ed. In the low­er Oder val­ley, such habi­tats are often found on the banks of the oxbow lakes and in the reed strips in the Oder foothills. In recent years, reed-free, fal­low grass­lands have increas­ing­ly been pop­u­lat­ed, pro­vid­ed they stand on moist ground and con­tain oth­er herbs and peren­ni­als in addi­tion to sedges and reed grass. In the Nasspold­er, the Rohrschwirl breeds main­ly in Pold­er 10, in the Wrech­see area, but also on the reeds on the banks of the oxbow lake, also in the north­east tip of the Trock­en­pold­ers, on the Stolper Strom and near Friedrich­sthal. The species has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly in recent years.

Sim­i­lar to the Rohrschwirl also col­o­nizes Reed War­bler (Acro­cephalus schoenobaenus) reeds inter­spersed with a rich lay­er of sedges and herbs. In the Low­er Oder Val­ley, the reed strips on the oxbow lakes are dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed in many places, even if they are only a few meters wide. In the more humid areas, the reed war­bler can also be found all over the grass­land, pro­vid­ed that sedge stands or tall reed grass mead­ows pre­dom­i­nate on the damp ground. This species also ben­e­fits from the decreas­ing cul­ti­va­tion inten­si­ty. The reed war­bler inhab­its the pold­er area in a sim­i­lar dis­tri­b­u­tion as the reed war­bler. In the Friedrich­sthaler Pold­er, too, the edges of the altar are dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed, espe­cial­ly north of Friedrichsthal.

The occur­rence The Throt­tle tube war­bler (Acro­cephalus arun­d­i­naceus) lim­it­ed to high, water-based reed stands with­out any note­wor­thy herba­ceous lay­er. Although most of the occur­rences are found in larg­er reed stands on oxbow lakes, for exam­ple on the Wrech­see or in the Oder foothills, remark­ably small reed beds are occa­sion­al­ly pop­u­lat­ed, for exam­ple in some places in the dry pold­er. Oth­er focal points are on the Welse­bo­gen and on the banks of the West or south of Gartz and Staffelde.

Great Reed Warbler

The fol­low­ing biotopes can be found both in the Oder flood­plain and in the hill­side forests.

The Sprout (Lus­cinia lus­cinia) col­o­nizes soft­wood mead­ows and small­er wil­low bush­es on moist ground with a par­tial­ly miss­ing but par­tial­ly well-devel­oped herb lay­er. He avoids dense closed forests, usu­al­ly also their edges, his ter­ri­to­ries are either in the semi-open land­scape or in heav­i­ly loos­ened larg­er trees with clear­ings and free spaces. In the wet pold­ers area, the sprout occurs almost every­where in all suit­able places, while it is some­what rar­er in the dry pold­ers and in the Friedrich­sthaler pold­er, in the periph­er­al areas only sparse­ly in semi-open wet areas.

The claims of nightin­gale (Lus­cinia megarhyn­chos) resem­ble those of the sprout, but it also uses dri­er woody plants. The Low­er Oder Val­ley lies on the north­ern edge of its closed dis­tri­b­u­tion area. While the nightin­gale is hard­ly less com­mon than the sprout south of the Low­er Oder Val­ley, it is already clear­ly behind it in the dry pold­er. The ratio between the two bird species is 1: 5. The species is cur­rent­ly increas­ing in population.

Nightin­gale

The dis­tricts The Blow whirls (Locustel­la flu­vi­atilis) are char­ac­ter­ized by a mul­ti­lay­ered veg­e­ta­tion struc­ture. What is impor­tant is a well-devel­oped, rich­ly struc­tured, dense but pen­e­tra­ble herb lay­er at the bot­tom. Peren­ni­al net­tle stocks are often pop­u­lat­ed with bent stalks or lying twigs. There should also be a lay­er of bush­es and trees. Many swirling areas are locat­ed in rel­a­tive­ly closed high­er stands of trees, many also in dense wil­low bush­es, some­times even in indi­vid­ual wil­low bush­es in the open coun­try­side. Larg­er closed forests are not pop­u­lat­ed or only spo­rad­i­cal­ly on the edge. In the Low­er Oder Val­ley, the Schlagschwirl prefer­ably breeds in the wet pold­ers, espe­cial­ly in the Fid­di­chow­er Pold­er and on the Schwedter Quer­fahrt. The species is rare in the dry pold­er. On the slopes of the Oder val­ley it occurs only on the edge of the closed forests.

The Tas­man­ian tit (Rem­iz pen­duli­nus) breeds in well-struc­tured, semi-open woody plants, most­ly on the banks of oxbow lakes in tall trees, near reed or cat­tail sur­faces, from net­tles and hops, which it uses as nest­ing mate­r­i­al. Despite the best habi­tat con­di­tions, the pygmy tit has been declin­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly for years, so that it is cur­rent­ly only rarely found as a breed­ing bird.

Tas­man­ian tit

The Carmine (Car­po­da­cus ery­thri­nus) prefers the loose soft­wood mead­ow with taller trees, wil­low bush­es and open reeds and shrubs and avoids larg­er closed tree pop­u­la­tions. The carmin­er lives in the Low­er Oder Val­ley near its lim­it of dis­tri­b­u­tion. The high­est den­si­ty is reached in the area of the West­oder near Friedrich­sthal, which is like­ly to be relat­ed to the prox­im­i­ty to suit­able habi­tats in the Zwis­chen­oder­land. Oth­er, small­er con­cen­tra­tions can be found on the Schwedter Quer­fahrt, on the Großer Zug and on the oxbow lakes in the dry pold­er near Stolpe. In the Ger­man part of the Low­er Oder Val­ley, the carmine pick­le was only observed from 1974 in the course of its west­ern expan­sion, and its pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ued to increase in the 1990s (Dit­tbern­er 1996). at present the pop­u­la­tion increase has stopped.

Carmine

The Spar­rowhawk War­bler (Sylvia niso­ria) col­o­nizes mul­ti-tiered woody plants in the open land­scape, both in very humid and in very dry areas. It is impor­tant to have some tall trees, which should not be too close togeth­er, and a well-devel­oped lay­er of bush­es, for exam­ple thorn bush­es, wil­lows and upstream stands of tall shrubs. Spar­rowhawk mos­qui­toes often seek the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of red-backed shrimp, prob­a­bly to exploit their ene­my and warn­ing behav­ior. They have high pop­u­la­tions in the remains of the soft­wood allu­vial for­est in the pold­er area, for exam­ple in the Fid­di­chow­er Pold­er near Friedrich­sthal and on the north side of the Schwedter Quer­fahrt and on the Großer Zug. The spar­rowhawk war­bler is rar­er in the dry pold­er, but can be seen on rich­ly struc­tured for­est edges, on field trees and dry slopes.

The Red backs (Lanius col­lu­rio) prefers thorn bush­es in the semi-open land­scape. Favor­able, if not nec­es­sary, are tall trees and, in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty, exten­sive­ly cul­ti­vat­ed, moist or dry grass­land that he uses for for­ag­ing. The red-backed shrike can be found in the soft­wood mead­ows of the pold­er area as well as on suit­able woody trees on the slopes of the Oder val­ley, espe­cial­ly on dry grass­land locations.

Red backs

The Gray shrike (Lanius exu­bitor) breeds in the semi-open area with bush­es and trees, which he can use as sit­ting wait­ing areas. It needs pas­tures and mead­ows with loose veg­e­ta­tion, but also occurs in a rich­ly struc­tured arable land­scape. In the Low­er Oder Val­ley, between five and eight ter­ri­to­ries are mapped annu­al­ly, but breed­ing evi­dence is less suc­cess­ful because this shrike is often very secre­tive dur­ing the breed­ing season.

theTur­tle­dove (Strep­topelia tur­tur) set­tles forests and wood­lands of the semi-open land­scape. Most of their ter­ri­to­ries are in loos­ened pine forests, often in periph­er­al areas, some­times also in closed decid­u­ous forests. A good sun expo­sure of the forests is obvi­ous­ly cru­cial for this warmth-need­ing species. The tur­tle dove is one of those bird species that has shown dra­mat­ic pop­u­la­tions for sev­er­al years. Cur­rent­ly only indi­vid­ual records are avail­able from the nation­al park, but they do not give any indi­ca­tions of breed­ing occurrences.

Dove

While the Stock dove (Colum­ba oenas) is depen­dent on old book stocks, prefer­ably the Black wood­peck­er (Dry­oco­pus mar­tius) Pines and beech­es and the Mid­dle wood­peck­er (Den­dro­co­pus medius) Oak forests with a high pro­por­tion of dead wood for the breed­ing busi­ness. The three species were main­ly observed in the Peter­berg, Densen­berg and Gellmers­dor­fer Forst. Both the Green wood­peck­er (Picus viridis) as well as the Small wood­peck­er (Den­dro­co­pus minor) are not com­mon either in the pold­ers or in the hill­side forests, but they do occur in moist decid­u­ous for­est areas. The stock dove and wood­peck­er species ben­e­fit from the non-use of forests and the asso­ci­at­ed increase in stand­ing dead wood.

Mid­dle woodpecker

The Yel­low mock­ers (Hip­po­lais icte­ri­na) inhab­its woody plants with a dense, well-devel­oped lay­er of bush­es and most­ly loose, tow­er­ing trees in both moist and dry sur­round­ings, but not in closed forests. In the pold­er area it breeds in soft­wood mead­ows, on the slopes it breeds prefer­ably in places where moist forests bor­der an open mead­ow land­scape and whose tran­si­tion areas are well struc­tured by bush­es, for exam­ple on the south­ern edge of the Gellmers­dor­fer Forest.

The Ori­ole (Ori­o­lus ori­o­lus) and the Gray­catch­er (Mus­c­i­ca­pa stri­a­ta) nest in the pold­er area as well as in the hill­side forests. Sim­i­lar claims as the Minia­ture fly­catch­er (Ficedu­la par­va) and the Pied fly­catch­er (Ficedu­la hypoleu­ca) mark the Wood war­bler (Phyleo­sco­pus sibi­la­trix). They all pre­fer the beech forests and the oak-horn­beam forests on the slopes of the Oder Val­ley, not least because of their mul­ti-lev­el age struc­ture with a sparse­ly devel­oped or even large­ly absent lay­er of bush­es and herbs. Its main area of dis­tri­b­u­tion is in the Gellmers­dor­fer Forest.

Marsh tit (Parus palus­tris) and Wil­low tit (Parus mon­tanus) inhab­it the decid­u­ous and mixed forests of the Low­er Oder Val­ley. Their main areas of dis­tri­b­u­tion com­ple­ment each oth­er: In the soft­wood flood­plains of the pold­er area the wil­low tit pre­dom­i­nates, in the hill­side forests the marsh tit.

Tit­mouse

Win­ter and sum­mer gold­en chick­ens (Reg­u­lus reg­u­lus, Reg­u­lus ign­i­capil­lus) are bound in their occur­rence to spruce and Dou­glas fir, as well as the bullfinch (Pyrrhu­la pyrrhu­la) and the Cross­bill (Lox­ia curvi­ros­tra). Most of the breed­ing pairs were found in the Densen Moun­tains, in the Peter Moun­tains and in the Gellmers­dor­fer Forest.

Bullfinch / Bullfinch

The Black kite (Mil­vus migrans) and the more com­mon Red kite (Mil­vus mil­vus) breed in the woods of the open land­scape and near the for­est edge. The red kites are par­tic­u­lar­ly easy to spot over the dry polder.

Red Milan

The Com­mon buz­zard (Buteo buteo) is the most com­mon bird of prey in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. Just like thatHawk (Accip­iter gen­tilis) and theBrown owl (Strix alu­co) it breeds main­ly in the rich­ly struc­tured decid­u­ous and mixed forests on the slopes of the Oder Val­ley. The tawny owl hunts both in the hill­side for­est and in the pold­er areas, while the Com­mon raven (Corvus corax) Con­cen­trat­ed on the hill­side forests, but also increas­ing­ly pop­u­lat­ed the direct flood­plain (e.g. pold­er 5/6).

Com­mon buzzard

The Turn­ing neck (Jynx torquil­la) inhab­its patchy, ant-rich dry grass­lands with adjoin­ing bush­es and thick, cave-rich trunks. In the Low­er Oder Val­ley, it is main­ly found on light for­est slopes and on clear cuts in the Densen Moun­tains, also on dry slopes and occa­sion­al­ly, most­ly near the dike, even in the pold­er area.

The Wood­lark (Lul­lu­la arborea) col­o­nizes dry grass­lands, the edges of loose pine forests, heather areas, clearcuts and well-defined for­est edges. It is impor­tant to have a loose herba­ceous lay­er with a pro­por­tion of sandy areas free of veg­e­ta­tion of at least 10% as well as loose trees and bush­es. The best way to meet the biotope require­ments is on the edge of the val­ley sand ter­races north of Friedrich­sthal, which are loose­ly lined with pine trees. In addi­tion, the wood­lark lives in suit­able for­est edge areas and open spaces, for exam­ple in the Peter­berg Moun­tains and on an allu­vial sand area in the pold­er near Stützkow.

Crest­ed lark

The Mead­ow pip­it (Anthus praten­sis) col­o­nizes moist but not wet grass­land, pro­vid­ed that the veg­e­ta­tion is not too high and not too dense. It breeds in high stocks in the dry pold­er and in the pold­er 5/6, the flood pold­ers are hard­ly pop­u­lat­ed any more.

Mead­ow pipit

The Yel­low wag­tail (Motacil­la fla­va) inhab­its the open land­scapes of the pold­er area, in the dry pold­er espe­cial­ly the Oder foothills. The species reach­es its high­est den­si­ty in wet mead­ows (cf. Dit­tbern­er and Dit­tbern­er 1991).

Yel­low wagtail

That Whin­chat (Sax­ivola rube­tra) breeds in tall herba­ceous cor­ri­dors with­in moist and dry grass­land areas with pro­trud­ing stalks, stakes or indi­vid­ual bush­es as perch­es. It avoids the humid areas of the wet pold­er and is main­ly found in the Friedrich­sthaler pold­er and on the dry slopes.

The Gray bunting (Ember­iza calan­dra) col­o­nizes the agri­cul­tur­al land­scape, it avoids wet and damp green areas and prefers dry grass­land with patchy veg­e­ta­tion, as it is found in the low­er Oder val­ley, espe­cial­ly on the dry slopes.

For par­tic­u­lar­ly rare large birds, nest pro­tec­tion zones have been estab­lished in accor­dance with the Bran­den­burg Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act.

The Marsh har­ri­er (Cir­cus aerug­i­nosus) breeds in larg­er reed areas of the Oder flood­plain with cur­rent­ly a total of nine breed­ing pairs. The breed­ing pop­u­la­tion has increased in recent years.

Marsh har­ri­er

Of the Crane (Grus grus) breeds either in reed beds, in moist alder forests or in allu­vial forests, where­by it needs stag­nant water and open spaces for for­ag­ing in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty. It is cur­rent­ly found with 51 breed­ing pairs / ter­ri­to­r­i­al pairs both in the pold­er area and in the moist edge areas of the hill­side forests (Hafer­land unpub­lished). In the area of the old dis­trict of Anger­münde and the city of Schwedt, 70 to 75 cranes brood­ed in 1994, around 15% of the Bran­den­burg pop­u­la­tion. In the Low­er Oder Val­ley is one of the large inland gath­er­ing and rest­ing places for the crane, which has been vis­it­ed for at least 80 years (Robi­en 1928; Hafer­land 1984). The actu­al sleep­ing place is in the Zwis­chen­oder­land, due to the dyke slit­ting in the pold­er 8, the flood­ed area is also used as a sleep­ing place. For two years now, sev­er­al hun­dred cranes have been sleep­ing in water­logged sedge mead­ows in Pold­er 5/6. The food areas are on the arable land, part­ly also on the mead­ows, espe­cial­ly in the area between Gartz, Tan­tow and Casekow (Hafer­land 1995). The cranes can be observed in spring and autumn in the evening hours from the dike direct­ly south of Gartz, from the slopes of the Sil­ber­berg or from the Stet­tin­er Berg near Mescherin.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can also be found on the page The migra­tion of birds.

Crane

The White-tailed eagle (Hali­aee­tus albi­cil­la) has five breed­ing sites in the core area, the nests of the oth­er sea eagle nests that can be observed above the Low­er Oder Val­ley are locat­ed in the exten­sive hill­side forests east of the Oder. The obser­va­tion of a white-tailed eagle is not that rare and is cer­tain­ly one of the high­lights of a trip to the Low­er Oder Val­ley (cf. Dit­tbern­er and Dit­tbern­er 1986).

White-tailed eagle

Also the Less­er Spot­ted Eagle (Aquila poma­ri­na) cur­rent­ly no longer nests in the area, but occa­sion­al­ly obser­va­tions suc­ceed, not only at migra­tion time, in the Oder Val­ley. The is rep­re­sent­ed by a breed­ing pair Black stork (Cico­nia nigra), which main­ly uses the damp and water­logged periph­er­al areas for for­ag­ing. The hill­side forests offer opti­mal breed­ing grounds for all three species, espe­cial­ly because of their rich mosa­ic of dif­fer­ent land­scape ele­ments. Keep­ing these undis­turbed is an impor­tant task of nature conservation.

Less­er Spot­ted Eagle

Fur­ther obser­va­tions and pub­li­ca­tions are avail­able for the whoop­er swan by KRUMMHOLZ (1981), for the dwarf swan by DITTBERNER & DITTBERNER (1984), for the quail by HAFERLAND (1986), for oys­ter­catch­ers, shel­duck and lit­tle tern by DITTBERNER & DITTBERNER (1986), for the cor­morant by KRUMMHOLZ (1988), for the dou­ble snipe by KUBE (1991) and for the barn owl by SCHMIDT (1995).

Since the mid-1960s, vol­un­tary ornithol­o­gists have car­ried out counts of rest­ing, migrat­ing and win­ter­ing water­fowl, and since 1975, month­ly sur­veys between Octo­ber and March as part of the inter­na­tion­al water­fowl cen­sus­es. The orga­ni­za­tion of this cen­sus is in the hands of D. Krummholz. In the first ten years of this pro­gram, vol­un­teers record­ed a total of over 1 mil­lion water birds in the wet pold­ers and on the Fel­chowsee alone.

The area is there­fore of Euro­pean impor­tance as a breed­ing, rest­ing and win­ter­ing place for rare or endan­gered bird species. For the area of the new fed­er­al states, the Low­er Oder Val­ley is the most impor­tant spring rest­ing area for waders and water­fowl inland and at the same time an impor­tant migra­to­ry axis in the sys­tem of Euro­pean bird migration.

As part of the inves­ti­ga­tions for the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan, 158 water bird counts were car­ried out in eight areas of the Low­er Oder Val­ley in the 1993/94 sea­son. In addi­tion to the pold­er area between Lunow and Gartz, the Fel­chowsee, Landin­er Haussee and Stolper fish ponds were includ­ed in the investigations.

The wet pold­ers are of great­est impor­tance as a rest­ing area in win­ter and spring. The fol­low­ing sev­en species ful­filled the 1 per­cent cri­te­ri­on of the Ram­sar Con­ven­tion almost every year from 1990 to 1994: Whoop­er swan (Cygnus cygnus), Bean Goose (Anser fabalis), White-front­ed goose (Anser alb­ifrons), Gad­fly (Anas strepera), Pin­tail (Anas acu­ta), Shov­el­er (Anas clypea­ta) and Pochard (Aythya feri­na). Six oth­er species reach the same val­ue in indi­vid­ual years.

The wet pold­ers are also impor­tant for four types of Limikolen on the home­ward jour­ney and for the moun­tain pip­it in winter.

A sum­ma­ry of the results of the water bird cen­sus from 1975 to 2015 was pub­lished in the Low­er Oder Val­ley Nation­al Park Year­book (KRUMMHOLZ 2016).

Table 1: Water bird census

Table 2: Water bird census

Table: Esti­mat­ed max­i­mum num­ber of indi­vid­u­als of dif­fer­ent bird species in the wet­land of inter­na­tion­al impor­tance (FIB) “Unteres Oder­tal” from the years between 1990 and 1996 (OAG Uckermark):

The Fel­chowsee and Landin­er Haussee locat­ed in the Uck­er­mark hills are also impor­tant rest­ing areas for a num­ber of water bird species, espe­cial­ly in sum­mer and autumn when the wet pold­ers are arti­fi­cial­ly kept dry, while the rest­ing pop­u­la­tions are only low in spring. The two lakes and the pold­er area com­ple­ment each oth­er sea­son­al­ly in terms of their impor­tance for migra­to­ry birds. The rapid pump­ing out of the water in the spring removes the rest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for late-migra­to­ry species, the pump­ing oper­a­tion in sum­mer pre­vents the for­ma­tion of wet spots and deval­ues the pold­ers as a rest­ing area at this time of the year and dur­ing the autumn migra­tion. The pump­ing out of the flood­ed pold­ers should be stopped as soon as pos­si­ble from an ornitho­log­i­cal point of view.

As part of these inves­ti­ga­tions for the care and devel­op­ment plan, only the small mam­mals were sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly record­ed; In addi­tion, vol­un­tary indi­vid­ual exam­i­na­tions as well as the unpub­lished report of the Uni­ver­si­ties of Halle (Saale) and Osnabrück (SCHRÖPFER, R. & M. STUBBE 1996) were consulted.

In order to ensure a sys­tem­at­ic qual­i­ta­tive record­ing of the small mam­mal pop­u­la­tion, 64 live traps were posi­tioned in the area for three days and nights at eight loca­tions. The 379 catch­es became ten species of small mam­mals plus the mouse weasel (Mustela nivalis) deter­mined. In order of total fre­quen­cy, these were wood shrews (Sorex ara­neus), Yel­low-necked mouse (Apode­mus flav­i­col­lis), Bank vole (Clethri­on­o­mys glare­o­lus), Nordic vole (Micro­tus oecono­mus), Field mouse (Micro­tus arvalis), Fire­mouse (Apode­mus agrar­ius), Har­vest mouse (Micromys min­u­tus), Water shrew (Neomys fodi­ens), Pygmy shrew (Sorex min­u­tus), Mouse weasel (Mustela nivalis) and water vole (Arvi­co­la ter­restris).

The most species-rich areas were rich­ly struc­tured areas with var­i­ous habi­tat ele­ments such as reeds, tall peren­ni­als, woody plants and bod­ies of water, espe­cial­ly the soft­wood flood­plains, which are rich in indi­vid­u­als. Areas that were peri­od­i­cal­ly flood­ed were poor in indi­vid­u­als, unless high­er areas offered appro­pri­ate retreats. Unused, moist grass­land proved to be far more valu­able in mam­malian biol­o­gy than hay meadows.

The Low­er Oder Val­ley is of nation­al impor­tance for small mam­mals less because of the occur­rence of threat­ened species than because of the large occur­rence and high pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty of demand­ing wet­land dwellers such as the water shrew, the har­vest vole and the Nordic vole, which has almost reached its west­ern lim­it in the Low­er Oder Valley.

The live catch­es were sup­ple­ment­ed by the analy­sis of 224 trolls from 706 prey ani­mals, which could be assigned to 622 small mam­mals. The bulbs came from tawny owl (Strix alu­co) and barn owl (Tyto alba). The gar­den shrew (Cro­cidu­ra suave­olens), Earth and house mouse (Micro­tus agrestis, Mus mus­cu­lus) were only found in ridges, not in the live traps. The prey spec­trum of the owls only par­tial­ly cor­re­sponds to the com­po­si­tion of the small mam­mal com­mu­ni­ty of the hunt­ing grounds, for exam­ple the shrews are under­rep­re­sent­ed in the tawny owl.

For wild boar (Sus cro­fa), Fal­low deer (Cervus dama), Red deer (Cervus ela­phus) and deer (Capre­o­lus capre­o­lus) the hunt­ing sta­tis­tics of the 13 hunt­ing dis­tricts since 1992 were eval­u­at­ed. How­ev­er, sev­er­al hunt­ing dis­tricts extend far beyond the core area of the ripar­i­an strip program.

Wild boar (Sus cro­fa): 148 wild boars were shot in the 1994/95 hunt­ing sea­son, sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er than in pre­vi­ous years. In the 2005/2006 hunt­ing year, a total of 275 ani­mals were shot in the nation­al park. Wild boars can be found through­out the area, espe­cial­ly in some hill­side forests, but also in dry pold­ers and out­side of the flood peri­od in wet polders.

Wild boar

Fal­low deer (Cervus dama): Two fal­low deer were hunt­ed in the 1994/95 hunt­ing sea­son, also few­er than in pre­vi­ous years. In the lat­er years the num­ber of hunt­ed ani­mals increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, so in 2005/2006 a total of 38 and in the hunt­ing year 2009/2010 a total of 22 ani­mals were hunt­ed. The main focus of fal­low deer occur­rence is cur­rent­ly the forests in the Schöneberg area.

Fal­low deer

Red deer (Cervus ela­phus): The red deer range is also low in the area and in the past few years had a max­i­mum of 14 kills in the 2006/2007 hunt­ing year. In the mid-1990s, the hunt for red deer was tem­porar­i­ly stopped. For­est dam­age caused by fal­low deer or red deer plays only a minor role. In the course of the new hunt­ing reg­u­la­tions in the nation­al park, the red deer is no longer hunt­ed in the pold­er areas, which means that depend­ing on the flood­ing con­di­tions, it pop­u­lates these areas more or less con­stant­ly. Vis­i­tors to the Oder Val­ley can expe­ri­ence the rut­ting of the deer in Pold­er A near Criewen up close.

Deer (Capre­o­lus capre­o­lus): In the 1994/95 hunt­ing sea­son, 288 deer were shot, sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er than in pre­vi­ous years. In the hunt­ing year 2005/2006 the hunt­ing dis­tance was a total of 222 ani­mals. To this day, experts do not agree on whether the cur­rent roe deer den­si­ty is too high or per­haps even too low. The only thing that is cer­tain is that the den­si­ty of game is nat­u­ral­ly sub­ject to strong fluc­tu­a­tions. Accord­ing to new the­o­ries, it should be the tra­di­tion­al, nat­ur­al role of the her­biv­o­rous game to keep clear­ings in the nat­ur­al for­est open for those species that we know today only as cul­tur­al fol­low­ers. In any case, the deer can be eas­i­ly observed today in the Low­er Oder Val­ley, espe­cial­ly in the pold­er areas that can be seen from the dike tops. Due to the hunt for deer, which has exist­ed for a num­ber of years, the ani­mals are some­times very famil­iar with vis­i­tors to the Nation­al Park.

Fawn

Moose (Alces alces): Although the elk is not hunt­ed, it should be briefly intro­duced in this con­text as a large game that can be hunt­ed. It was exter­mi­nat­ed in this area in the Mid­dle Ages. In the past, how­ev­er, moose have repeat­ed­ly been observed roam­ing the area. It is to be expect­ed that the elk will be per­ma­nent­ly at home in the new­ly cre­at­ed wilder­ness areas in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. He could become a sym­bol­ic ani­mal. An elk set­tle­ment near War­saw result­ed in a sta­ble elk pop­u­la­tion in cen­tral Poland. The moose migrat­ing west­wards prob­a­bly come from this pop­u­la­tion. Fre­quent feed­ing areas for the immi­grat­ed ani­mals are flood­plains, for­est areas and swamps rich in ponds and lakes, as well as areas rich in soft­wood in oth­er loca­tions that have a favor­able food sup­ply (Heyne 1996).

Moose

Brown hare (Lep­us europaeus): Although the brown hare has become increas­ing­ly rare in Bran­den­burg, it is still one of the most com­mon mam­mals in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. It pop­u­lates the dry grass slopes as well as the pold­er area and the sur­round­ing arable land­scape, in the arable land­scape near Gartz in a den­si­ty of around ten spec­i­mens per 100 ha. Wild rab­bit (Oryc­to­la­gus cunicu­lus), on the oth­er hand, are now prob­a­bly extinct in the Low­er Oder Valley.

Hare

Red fox (Vulpes vulpes): The red fox is also very com­mon in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. Espe­cial­ly dur­ing floods, it can be seen on the dykes, where it retreats just like its prey. Since the rabies vac­ci­na­tion, the fox­es have been able to repro­duce strong­ly in the Low­er Oder Val­ley as well as in the whole of Bran­den­burg. 130 of them were shot in the 1994/95 hunt­ing sea­son. Due to the hunt­ing reg­u­la­tions of the nation­al park, there is no longer any reg­u­la­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. The stocks fluc­tu­ate because in some years dis­eases such as z. E.g. the mange that affects density.

Fox

Rac­coon dog (Nyc­tereutes pro­cy­onoides): The rac­coon dog, orig­i­nal­ly native to East Asia, has also become nat­u­ral­ized in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. In the years 1996/97, 13 copies were col­lect­ed as road traf­fic vic­tims. Since it feeds on birds and their eggs, among oth­er things, it can — like the fox — be dan­ger­ous for mead­ow breed­ing pop­u­la­tions, which are pol­lut­ed in many ways. These preda­to­ry mam­mals would not pose a risk for the mead­ow breed­ers under nat­ur­al con­di­tions; they would be giv­en in par­tic­u­lar if the grass­land is cul­ti­vat­ed very exten­sive­ly and the sum­mer pump­ing oper­a­tions for the arti­fi­cial drainage of the pold­ers are discontinued.

Racoon (Pro­cy­on lotar): The small bear, orig­i­nal­ly from North Amer­i­ca, was released into the wild in Hesse before the last world war to “enrich” the fau­na and the ani­mals that escaped from a fur farm on the out­skirts of Berlin in 1945 con­quered large parts of Ger­many in the last few decades. The nation­al park has also been inhab­it­ed for two decades, ini­tial­ly only by indi­vid­ual ani­mals. Espe­cial­ly in the south­ern part of the pro­tect­ed area, north to Schwedt / Oder., It is wide­spread today. Due to its pre­dom­i­nant­ly noc­tur­nal activ­i­ty, it is rarely observed. Due to his skills, he is a good climber and likes to swim, he reg­u­lar­ly plun­ders the colonies of herons and cor­morants as well as the seagulls.

Racoon

Two species of mam­mals are par­tic­u­lar­ly typ­i­cal of the Low­er Oder Valley:

Otter (Lutra lutra): Evi­dence and mapped traces of the otter can be found all over the pold­er area. The major­i­ty come from larg­er oxbow lakes in the pold­er area, which are favor­able otter habi­tats due to their struc­tur­al rich­ness. Most of the evi­dence, main­ly through the solu­tion and mark­ing and feed­ing places, can be found in the Criewen­er, Schwedter and Fid­di­chow­er as well as in the Friedrich­sthaler pold­er. But traces were also found in the Oder foothills of Lunow and Stolpe. The Low­er Oder Val­ley, with its mul­ti­tude of bod­ies of water and its uncut large area, is like­ly to be an out­stand­ing set­tle­ment area for otters. Con­nec­tions with occur­rences in the Salvey­bach, the Randow-Welse-Bruch and the Fel­chowsee area as well as to the Pol­ish side are to be assumed. Proof of repro­duc­tion is avail­able almost every year through obser­va­tion of young lead­ing females. Road traf­fic also repeat­ed­ly claims vic­tims, espe­cial­ly on the B 2 between the Müh­len­te­ich in Gartz and the West­oder, as well as on the for­mer B 2 at Zützen — Meyenburg.

Otter

Beaver (Cas­tor fiber): In the Low­er Oder Val­ley, the beaver was exter­mi­nat­ed in the 18th cen­tu­ry. In order to rein­tro­duce cit­i­zen­ship, Elbe beavers were released in north­east Bran­den­burg in the 30s and 70s of the 20th cen­tu­ry, to which all present-day occur­rences can be traced back. The first more recent records come from Mescherin in 1967, from the area around Stet­tin (Szczecin) in 1971, from Friedrich­sthal in 1982 and from the Salvey val­ley in 1984. How­ev­er, these obser­va­tions and find­ings of inter­faces were more like­ly to be traced back to indi­vid­u­al­ly migrat­ing ani­mals than to per­ma­nent set­tle­ments. The beaver has been down-to-earth in the Zwis­chen­oder­land near Gartz and Mescherin since the ear­ly 1990s, and in the Fid­di­chow­er Pold­er since the mid-1990s. The species cur­rent­ly inhab­its prac­ti­cal­ly all bod­ies of water in the nation­al park, includ­ing the small, only peri­od­i­cal­ly water-bear­ing ditch­es in the hill­side forests, where it dams the water through dams. Approx­i­mate­ly 80 set­tle­ments are cur­rent­ly expect­ed in the area. Sub­species such as the Elbe beaver (C. f. Albi­cus) and the East­ern Euro­pean beaver who immi­grat­ed from Poland (C. f. Vis­tu­lanus) on. Both sub­species mate and then form hybrids.

Swamp beaver

A total of 58 mam­mal species have so far been record­ed in the Low­er Oder Val­ley, some of which such as the elk and wolf (Canius lupus) are not yet down to earth and the gray seal (Hali­choerus gry­pus) was proven for the first time for the state of Bran­den­burg. The down-to-earth­ness of some bat species is also ques­tion­able; the evi­dence relates to noc­tur­nal hunt­ing in the nation­al park. This means that more than half of the 101 mam­mal species in Ger­many and more than two thirds of the mam­mal species record­ed in Bran­den­burg are found in the Low­er Oder Val­ley. 23 of them are on Brandenburg’s Red List as threat­ened or even extinct, 10 on the list of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. For such a small area (0.3% of the area of Bran­den­burg) that is a remark­able quotient.