Nature Reserve Schouwen-duiveland

At the head the gulls dunes and lots of forest are located, and along the southern edge a bird promenade and an inside dike marsh. As the northernmost peninsula, Schouwen Duiveland is "the crown of Zeeland". Join a seafood banket from the Oosterschelde. Stroll through charming seaside towns like Renesse and Haamstede. Go swimming, sailing or diving. Tracking deer, or bird watching. Or walk through the largest forest of Zeeland, in the protected natural monument; "De Kop van Schouwen". So vast, that you never stumble upon each other. Under beautiful skies, in continuous new light. Towards the silence of Schouwen.

The northernmost part of Zealand bears like no other the scars of the 1953 water floods. In the battle against the elements, nature since has had to abandon a lot to humans. But the tide has turned on Schouwen. Forestry Commission is actively working on 'new nature'. The landscape in its second life. Schouwen is again a patchwork of nature reserves. The most important of these are:

Kop van Schouwen

The largest forest of Zeeland is located in Westerschouwen. Where you hear the breakers everywhere. With wild honeysuckle, which smells so nicely after a rainstorm. Together with the gull’s dunes, the nature reserve is part of the 'Kop van Schouwen’. A hilly dunes landscape. With sand-drifts, valleys and dune meadows. Forest edges with plenty of birds and bush. Everywhere life rustles that you can watch from the many marked trails or from the shelter or watch tower.

Schelphoek

This creek area on the shores of the Oosterschelde was one of the biggest dike breakthroughs during the great floods. A ring dike is built around the disaster area in the battle with the swirling water. The Forestry Commission planted forest near the town of Serooskerke. The rich land is now lush with rising wood and dog rose. You can enjoy hiking here on the border between land and water. Along the promenade filled with plenty of olive willow. There’s the Deltapad for lovers of the long distance. For the youth, there’s the search-your-walk way. If they don’t prefer to swim in the creek at least. Or play on the wide riparian strips.

The Prunje: Plan Tureluur

The "Prunje" was already praised as a bird paradise by the seventeenth-century writers. After the excavation of peat, a watery wilderness remained here. A swamp inside the dike. But watermills milled the "Prunje" dry. Farmers brought it after the floods of 1953 in culture. The habitat of the birds disappeared.

On the southern coast of Schouwen, nature conservationists developed the "plan Tureluur". The vast salt / brackish marsh clay has returned to the Prunje Polder Because the salinity and humidity vary widely locally, there is an enormous variety of vegetation. The swarming back of waterfowl and grassland birds. The nature lover can knock himself out: there is a watchtower, a bird viewing window and through the Delingsdijk and the Inlaagweg even a ‘bird boulevard’.

Flora and fauna

Large gull colonies can be found in the dunes area. In The Meeuwenduinen (Gulls Dunes) nest about seven thousand couples herring gulls and small black gulls. Toads, tiny tree frogs and newts live in Vroongronden in drinking wells and in the Gadra forest.

Sweet-Salt

The freshwater creek Schelphoek is rich in rare plants thanks to the transition from salt to sweet, including many species of orchids. There are no fewer than sixty species of nesting birds here. The "Prunje" is the domain of salt marsh plants such as samphire and sea aster. Black-headed gull species, avocet, redshank, oystercatcher, common terns and arctic tern breed here.

Special animals such as plumose anemones, walking skeletons (a kind of shrimp), squid and sea squirts live in the Oosterschelde. Around hundred different species of fish swim here. Thousands of birds settle on the sandbanks at low tide.