Field Education Center in Osowiec-Twierdza

Historical Nature Path
The path travels through the narrowest part of the Biebrza Valley, this region is only 1 km wide. The location of the trail emphasis's the value of nature and the historical significance of Osowiec Fortress. Hiking along the trail you can familiarize yourself with the unique features of the Biebrza nature. These features represent some of the flora and fauna in the park. You could feast our eyes on a very wide area and open landscape. This will help you to obtain a better knowledge of the area.

Trail Directions
The educational trail starts out in front of the headquarters of Biebrza National Park, close to the Osowiec train station. From the beginning, the trail passes through a mixed forest reaching the base of Skobla Hill. During the years of 1912-1914 this area was fortified. The observation tower is located on this hill, from this place you could observe a wonderful view of the Biebrza Valley. Continuing down the path, after exiting the forest we turn right and go through the old bridge on the Biebrza river. After the bridge, the path goes along the ruins of the Osowiec Bunkers of the 19th Century, built by the Tsar. The next stages of our trip consist of wooden paths and observation towers. These wooden paths are put along the flooded area of the Biebrza Valley. Due to the narrow width of this region, the whole area is flooded. Surface flooding can remain for 82-340 days and its maximum depth can be between 50-200cm. The trail continues across the Bialystok/Ełk road and finishes at the Rudzki Canal made in the 19th century as a hydrological complex site. For making the visiting more interesting there has been made three observation towers, three wooden observation platforms and 1000m of wooden pathways.

What you could see?
If you'll lucky you could observe, many interesting species of birds, (easiest to watch in may) for example wild ducks, a
Black Tern, a Common Snipe, a Hoopoe, a Mute Swan, the White Tailed Eagle, and a Marsh Harrier. Among the mammals you could meet elk, beaver, American mink. The plant life is very rich as well. Apart from very common forest plants, there are also very rare plants. You could see Daphne, Mezereon, Martagon. Some water/fen plants can be seen from the observation platform, like the Water Lily, Nuphar, Frog's Bit, and the Water Solider, also many sedges and Horsetails are observable from the platform.