The Narew National Park

The Narew National Park established on 21.07.1996, encompasses the marshy Narew valley between Suraz and Rzedziany. The Park is located in the Podlaskie province, at the area of about 7 thousand hectares that belongs to the seven districts: Suraz, Lapy, Turosn Koscielna, Sokoly, Choroszcz, Tykocin and Kobylin Borzymy. The most outstanding feature of the Narew National Park is the valley, witch had been formed for thousands of years by many beds of the river.

Very characteristic in the Park is floras' diversity formed by 58 complexes of plants. The most widespread are rushes, aquatic and swamp plants. At the NNP's area occur the protected plants: white water-lily, yellow water-lily, Siberian iris, Jacob's-ladder, orchis, sundew and others. While canoeing on Narew one can see various species of aquatic plants: water-soldier and frogbit - the plants of old river-beds; sparganium, reed and cattail growing by river-banks. Such diversity favours birds concentration, and that was the decisive factor in the establishing the protected area. Birds are the most treasure of the Narew National Park. The Narew valley is a mainstay of water and swamp birds, about 200 species were noticed there, 154 of them are breeding ones.

The valley is also an important habitat of resting and feeding birds during migration time. Many of bird species are threatened by extinction, e.g. widgeon, little crake, pintail, aquatic warbler, great snipe, and ruff. In the NNP occur birds rarely seen in other parts of Poland, e.g. savi's warbler, black tern, water rail, spotted crake, marsh harrier (the symbol of the NNP), corncrake, bluethroat and bittern. While canoeing one can see heron during fishing, skeins and flock of mallards passing over-head and marsh harrier flying its territory. One can hear the sound of cranes hidden in thicket or the sound of bittern - like blowing an empty bottle.

At the area of the Narew National Park noticed about 40 mammal species and the most frequent occurrence is beaver. While canoeing it is very easy to see beaver lodges located on riversides and beavers during feeding, especially by night. The population of beavers is estimated about at 300 induviduals. Up to 70 lodges were counted in the NNP. The other mammals one can meet are otter, mink, elk, musk-rat, deer, roe-deer and wild boar.

In the Narew waters occur 22 fish species, 4 of them are protected. The dominant fish species are pike and roach.

Abode of the Narew National Park is the mansion in Kurowo. Inside mansion is the small museum of nature and fishing tools have been using by inhabitants of the valley to the present day. The seat surrounds park with 51 monuments of nature. In Kurowo one can also walk on foot-bridge and view-tower. A unique attraction of staying at Narew is a ride on a "push-boat". The push-boat is a wooden, flat-bottom boat witch were used on Narew river to transport hay from meadows placed on the opposite riverside and has been still using by anglers. Boat's features enable riding on narrow and shallow channels, especially in the summer, when water level decreases and many of river bed becomes covered with a growth of plants.