The city is situated on the Warta river in Międzychód County, about 75 km north-west of Poznań.
The Beech on Lake Lutom Reserve is a 55.17 ha forest reserve created in 1958. It lies within the Sieraków administrative district, 3 km south of Sieraków. The reserve protects a fragment of beech forest growing beside a tunnel valley filled with the waters of Lake Lutom. Rainfall and melting ice have carved deep, ramified, picturesque gorges and ravines into the edges of the tunnel in many places. The mighty 300-year-old oaks, which measure 400 cm around the trunk, are especially worth a look.
Most of the reserve is covered by Central European dry ground forest comprising pendunculate oak, common pine and sycamore in addition to beech trees. The reserve is inhabited by many animal species with gastropods being especially diversified. The most impressive is the edible snail (a protected species) and the red slug. The easternmost limit of the latter’s distribution runs through the Voivodeship of Wielkopolska. Several rare bird species can be spotted here, including tawny owls, common buzzards, honey buzzards, green and black woodpeckers, kingfishers and golden orioles. The handiwork of beavers is in evidence on the reserve in the shape of felled trees and stumps stripped of bark.
The Beech on Lake Lutom Reserve has the distinction of being the only place in Wielkopolska where the protected arboreal rodent, the dormouse, makes its home. Over recent years, research programs and programs to reintroduce the dormouse have been carried out in several places in the Sieraków Landscape Park so as to actively protect this particular animal and ensure its continued survival in Wielkopolska. The red tourist trail runs parallel to the lake, crossing the reserve from Sieraków to Kurnatowice.
