The Low­er Oder Val­ley is par­tic­u­lar­ly famous for its bird migra­tion. In spring and autumn well over 100,000 geese and ducks, but also 10,000 cranes and oth­er migra­to­ry birds use the Low­er Oder Val­ley as a rest­ing and win­ter­ing area. Above all, the crane migra­tion in autumn, when the cranes fly rel­a­tive­ly flat in the morn­ing from their night quar­ters in the Pol­ish Zwis­chen­oder­land to their feed­ing places on the har­vest­ed corn and grain fields on the Ger­man side and back in the evening, is a spec­tac­u­lar tourist attraction.

The train of whoop­er swans and cranes are always spe­cial Excur­sions offered, but you can also watch the crane migra­tion on your own. The evenings between Sep­tem­ber 15 and Octo­ber 15, depend­ing on the weath­er, are best suit­ed for this pur­pose between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. The best place to do this is on the dike west of the West­oder between Friedrich­sthal and Gartz. There is also an obser­va­tion tow­er south of Gartz.

The spec­tac­u­lar crane migra­tion in par­tic­u­lar is influ­enced by many fac­tors. The cranes need enough water in what is now the Pol­ish Zwis­chen­oder­land to be able to spend the night there undis­turbed by preda­tors. The Pol­ish plans to recul­ti­vate the so-called Zwis­chen­oder­land, i.e. in the for­mer Schillers­dor­fer Pold­er and the for­mer Gartzer Pold­er, which have been left to nature since 1945, in order to reg­u­late the water lev­el, endan­ger this impor­tant crane roost. On the Ger­man side, the crane migra­tion is being impaired by the wind pow­er plants that are becom­ing more preva­lent there and are shoot­ing high­er and high­er. Rest­ing cranes and espe­cial­ly geese in large num­bers in the fields in the fresh­ly sown can cause con­sid­er­able dam­age, which is why some farm­ers do not speak well about bird migration.