Lauwersmeer National Park

Lauwersmeer is a young lake on the border of Groningen and Friesland, created on a single day, 23 May 1969, when the dike closing the old Lauwers Sea off from the Wadden Sea was shut. The central and eastern parts became a national park in 2003, around sixty square kilometres of open water, reed and rough grazing. It is above all a bird place: spoonbill, Montagu’s harrier, bearded reedling and bluethroat in the breeding season, and hundreds of thousands of wigeon, Bewick’s swans and barnacle geese through the winter. Konik horses and Highland cattle keep the landscape open. In 2016 it was named the country’s second Dark Sky Park.