Anyone who visits the Ormož Basins Nature Reserve these days can bear witness to the richness of birdlife there. Each March the nature reserve boasts up to 1000 specimens of more than 30 water bird species. This diversity is a result of our efforts to renovate and properly manage the habitats of the past.
Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago).
Photo: Alen Ploj
Although the bulk of renovation work at the reserve took place between 2014 and 2017, as part of the LIFE project (LIFE11 NAT/SI/882), there are still many basins that would benefit from habitat restoration. We’ve brought to life just one such basin in the previous year.
The 1.5 ha surface area of the second basin’s northern section was overgrown by mostly introduced species of vegetation, and approximately 100 differently sized tree stumps made it difficult to perform quality hay harvest and restoration works at the basin. With support from the German foundation EuroNatur, we removed the stumps, evened the surface, mowed the vegetation and established the water regime necessary for the existence of wet meadows. In this way, we successfully restored an additional area of our nature reserve already in autumn 2020 when it was visited and used as a feeding ground by the common snipe, offering refuge to this species even now, at the time of its spring migration.
The renovated area is situated in the closed-off section of the nature reserve and can’t be accessed by visitors. We will strive to maintain the newly formed wet meadow in a continuous state of maximum biodiversity.
