Stawiska Nature Reserve

The Stawiska nature reserve is a small forest reserve near the village of Parzymiechy in the municipality of Lipie, in Kłobuck County. It protects low oak-hornbeam woodland, alder carr communities and old pedunculate oaks, and lies in the buffer zone of the Załęcze Landscape Park.

What the reserve protects

The reserve was established on 5 May 1959 to preserve a complex of low oak-hornbeam woodland, alder carr and monumental oaks. A count here found 85 pedunculate oaks with trunk circumferences from 380 to 674 cm, aged from about 200 to 500 years. The area is very waterlogged, and a small watercourse flows through its middle.

The stand is formed mainly of black alder, silver birch, Norway spruce and European beech, with an admixture of fir, pine and aspen. The ornamental shrubs growing here may point to the park past of the place.

Animals of the reserve

The old oaks and willows have hollows and rotten trunks in which bats shelter. Rare amphibians live here: newts, the common spadefoot, the European tree frog and the common and green toads, as well as the sand lizard and the viviparous lizard. Birds listed include the common buzzard, the goshawk and the sparrowhawk.

Practical information

• Location: right by the road from Parzymiechy to Działoszyn, as an enclave of deciduous forest among fields and meadows.
• Area: about 6.3 ha (the establishing act gave 5.85 ha).
• Management: Kłobuck Forest District. The area also belongs to the Natura 2000 network.
• Check the rules of movement in the reserve on site, on the notice boards, or with the forest district.
• Nearby: the Bukowa Góra nature reserve, given in the entry on the reserve as lying close by.