Barycz Valley Landscape park
The park was established in 1996 on the area of 870, 4 square kilometres. Most of it is located in Lower Silesian voivodeship and only 170 square kilometres in Greater Poland voivodeship – in Ostrzeszów county.
By the power of law this park protects the whole valley along with it’s tributaries and all surrounding area. The peculiarity of that territory is naturally linked to the collections of ponds which have their origin in the XIII-th century. They are still used in the process of fish farming, especially carps. These ponds are the most precious element of the landscape which is why some of them are not only protected by the regular nature preserve law but also by the Ramsar Convention from 1971 about wetlands.
The park includes many marshy grounds, moors (also known as mires or peat bogs in a different terminology), riparian forests, alders, oak-hornbeam forests, meadows, pastures and farmlands what actually reflects the richness and diversity of both flora and fauna.
The flora here is a habitat for all aquatic, humid and marshy kinds. It was confirmed that in the park we can encounter such protected plants as Yellow water lily, White water lily, Floating fern (Water butterfly wings), Ivy, Mezereon (February daphne), Broad-leaved Helleborine and Royal fern.
In terms of fauna, especially the aboundance of birds is exquisite as it includes over 200 kinds of them and 166 are breeding ones. Some are actually rare and endangered - not only in a national but also European scale like Red kite, White-tailed eagle, Lessser potted eagle, Black stork, Eurasian bittern and Bearded reedling. Apart from birds in the park live 29 kinds of fishes, 13 kinds of amphibians, 6 kinds of reptilians and 51 kinds of mammals. An extraordinary peculiarity is definitely the presence of European pond turtles.
The park has historical and cultural values as well because of many sacred places, urban structures and. The most breath-taking of them is the one in Milicz (located in Lower Silesian voivodeship).
