Lake Kerkini – Serres – Kicking Back the Pebbles

A morning @ Lake Kerkini {part 1}

Lake Kerkini (in Greek: Λίμνη Κερκίνη) is an artificial reservoir that was created in 1932, when the first dam was constructed to contain the waters of Strymonas River, on the site of what was previously an extensive marshland. It lays in the northwest part of the regional unit of Serres, just 40 km/24.8 miles from the town of Serres (second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki) and about 100 km/62.1 miles from Thessaloniki itself. The Lake Kerkini National Park was established in November 2006 for the protection of the area as a national natural heritage site, under the following conventions:

Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat (the Ramsar Convention)
Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (the Bonn Convention)
Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife & Natural Habitats (the Bern convention)

The total protected area amounts to about 831.000 m²/205,345 acres. More than 300 bird species have been observed in the Lake Kerkini National Park. 137 of these species nest, 134 overwinter and 163 use the wetland & the surrounding areas as an intermediate resting & foraging stop on their migration routes.

There are also many species of mammals, like otters (Lutra lutra), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), wildcats (Felis sylvestris), least weasels (Mustela nivalis), grey wolves (Canis lupus), wild boars (Sus scrofa), and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) to name but a few, including the largest number of water buffalo in Greece, a species that is under the protection of the Greek state, restricted to only a few wetlands in the country in the last 50 years. There have also been recorded 32 fish species, at least 25 species of reptiles, and at least 4,700 species of invertebrates, more than 1,396 of which are deemed as new species for Greece and at least 46 are deemed as new species for science!