Bory Tucholskie National Park

The “Bory Tucholskie” National Park was established within the Zaborski Scenic Park on the 1st July 1996. It covers an area of 4789,34 ha. The Park lies in an early glacial lake district outwash landscape of the southern Polish lake district in the upper Brda basin on the Charzykowska plain, at an average altitude of 140 meters. The whole terrain is covered with glacio-fluvial sands which emerged from beneath a glacier 15 thousand years ago, during the Pomeranian phase of the Baltic ice age.

A cumulative plain was then formed, at present dotted with deflationary basins, and especially with lakes of various depths. In the west the park borders on the largest lake of the region – the Charzykowskie Lake, with a surface area of 13,6 square km, a depth of 30,5 meters and on the Karsinskie Lake (surface area 6,9 square km, depth 27 meters). In the eastern part the Ostrowite Lake (surface area 2,8 square km, depth 43 meters) stretches in a north-south direction. The park has 18 lakes with an area of over 1 ha, 11 of them are oligotrophic lakes with crystal clear water, called “Lobelian” because of the Lake Lobelia Lobelia dortmanna and the Merlin’s Grass Isoetes lacustris growing in it.
The area of the park, 90% of which is covered by forest, forms a small (3,7%) western fragment of the Bory Tucholskie Forest (1170 square km). Fresh forest covers 65% of the area, while dry forest covers 25% of the area. 78 plant assemblages have been identified here, including 15 of the forest type, 7 of the peat moor type and 56 of the water type.
The vegetation of the park includes 62 varieties of Lichen, including the supposedly extinct Usnea Usnea hirtella, 27 relict varieties, e.g. Sedge Carex chorodorrhiza, Black Crowberry Empetrum nigrum, Peat moor Saxifrage Saxifraga hirculus, Orchid of the genus Microstylis Malaxis monophyllos, and the Moss Paludella squarrosa.
The most valuable vertebrates, to be found here include the Eagle Owl Bubo bubo, the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos, the Golden Eye Bucephala clangula, the Kingfisher Alcedo attis, the Water Shrew Neomys anomalus and the Otter Lutra lura.
Moreover, the park and its environs house 2 species of cyclostomatous in danger of extinction: the River Lamprey Lampetra fluviatilis and the Brook Lamprey L. planeri as well as 25 varieties of fish, 13 amphibians, 6 reptiles, 108 nesting birds and 44 mammals, including 7 species of bats.