Qualla: Lake Kuş

Lake Kuş: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cetintas555, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name translates simply as Bird Paradise — Kuş Cenneti in Turkish — and the birds arrive to justify it. Every spring and autumn, the shallow waters of Lake Kuş (also called Lake Manyas) fill with pelicans, spoonbills, flamingos, and scores of other species passing through on the great migration corridors that cross northwestern Turkey. The lake sits 15 kilometers south of Bandırma, fed by four streams and a matrix of groundwater, its average depth barely three meters. Narrow belts of Phragmites reed fringe its edges; small deltas of marsh and willow line the stream mouths. More than 270 bird species have been recorded here. Some nest. Some winter. Some simply pass through and keep moving. A few, like the vulnerable Dalmatian pelican, treat the lake as one of their most important refuges in the eastern Mediterranean.

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Image: Cetintas555 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake Kuş: A German Zoologist and a 64-Hectare Miracle

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acar54, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Kuş Cenneti nature reserve — 64 hectares carved from the lake's northeastern corner near the village of Sığırcık — was established in 1938. The driving force was Curt Kosswig, a German zoologist and hydrologist who worked in Turkey from 1937 to 1955 and recognized the lake's ...

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Image: Acar54 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake Kuş: Wings Over Still Water

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cetintas555, CC BY-SA 4.0. The lake's birdlife is exceptional not just in quantity but in rarity. The Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) maintains a breeding population here — a globally vulnerable species whose numbers have declined across much of its range. Great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus)...

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Image: Cetintas555 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake Kuş: Pressures on the Paradise

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emrahuygun, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name Bird Paradise carries weight, but the reality is complicated. Lake Kuş is under pressure from multiple directions at once. Agricultural intensification in the surrounding lowlands delivers fertilizers and pesticides into the water through runoff and through the four stre...

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Image: Emrahuygun | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake Kuş: Between the Lake and the Sky

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kızıl, CC BY-SA 4.0. What draws visitors who make the short drive south from Bandırma is the sensation — rare even in dedicated nature reserves — of being genuinely outnumbered by birds. In the breeding season, the colony trees at Sığırcık hold dozens of nesting pairs of herons, cormorants, spoonbill...

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Image: Kızıl | CC BY-SA 4.0