Heuwiese is an uninhabited German

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

island that lies about two kilometres south of

Ummanz The island of Ummanz lies in the Baltic Sea, off the west coast of the island of Rügen, and belongs, like the latter, to the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Ummanz is around 20 square kilom ...

and west of Germany's largest island,

Rügen Rügen (; la, Rugia, ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, where ...

. It has a maximum extend of 900 metres (from northwest to southeast) and is about 40 hectares in area. The island, which is over 1 metre high is a bird reserve that lies within the West Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park. The island is a typical salt grassland (''Salzgrasland'') of the West Pomeranian lagoon coastline and was formed from zones of sediment accretion that have gradually become exposed, known as ''

windwatt A ''Windwatt'' is a mudflat exposed as a result of wind action on water. They occur especially in the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park on Germany's Baltic Sea coast. The term is German.

s''. The resulting areas lie just a few centimetres about sea level (NN) and are flooded from time to time at irregular intervals. The island received its name from its earlier use as cattle pasture. Since the mid-19th century it has also been known as a bird colony and was officially placed under protection in 1939 as a breeding site for coastal birds. In 2007 about 15 different species bred on Heuwiese (including four species of gull and several species of duck). One feature are the breeding cormorants on the island that, despite being tree nesters, have built high nests on the ground here.

External links

Information on Heuwiese at the website of the West Pomeranian Lagoon Area National Park
{{authority control Islands of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania German islands in the Baltic Ummanz West Rügen Bodden