Janow Forests

Lasy Janowskie run for about six hundred square kilometres across the sandy plain south of Lublin, mostly pine with alder in the wet hollows and a landscape park over the core of it. The reason birdwatchers come is a chain of fish ponds - carp ponds dug and managed since at least the sixteenth century and enlarged in the nineteenth, now some of the largest complexes in this part of Poland - which produce exactly the shallow, weedy, gradually drained water that waterbirds want. The list here is long: ferruginous duck, which is scarce in Europe, along with bitterns, black-necked grebes, marsh terns, cranes, and white-tailed eagles overhead. Away from the ponds the forest is genuinely empty, with peat bogs, wolf territory and marked trails that see very little traffic. It is one of the least visited large forests in Poland for its size.

What you actually see

• Six hundred square kilometres - pine on sand with alder in the wet ground.
• Historic carp ponds - managed since the sixteenth century, enlarged in the nineteenth.
• Scarce waterbirds - ferruginous duck, bitterns, black-necked grebes and marsh terns.
• Emptiness - trails through peat bog and pine with almost no traffic.

When to go

April to September; spring for birds. A day.

Honest expectations

The ponds are working fisheries and access is around them, not across them. Ticks and mosquitoes are both bad. Signage is thin and tracks are sandy. There is very little accommodation inside the forest.

Nearby

Janow Lubelski is on the northern edge; Roztocze is east.