Barcs Juniper Forest

Barcs Juniper Forest is a protected area in Somogy County. Previously it was a landscape protection zone, today it is part of the Danube–Drava National Park. Part of it is freely accessible, but there are highly protected sections that can be entered only with permission.

History

Botanist Ádám Boros already drew attention to the value of the ancient juniper area in 1923, but the first protected area designation only took place in 1942. This area, consisting of five parts, the so‑called “Középrigóci grove”, included the middle section of the Rigóc stream as well as the famous Patkó Bandi tree and the nearby, so‑called “spear‑shaped” black pine. The 34 km² ancient juniper area was placed under protection in 1974: it became Hungary’s fourth landscape protection zone. In 1996 this status was discontinued, as it was declared part of the Danube–Drava National Park. Starting from the highway 6 rest area, a two‑kilometre educational trail was also created for visitors.

In 2000 most of the ancient juniper area burned down, and the wildlife suffered significant damage. On 12 November 2014, on the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the landscape protection zone, professional lectures were held and a commemorative plaque was unveiled.

Description and wildlife

In the southern part of Somogy, near the Drava, the sandy soil of the area causes even small elevation differences to create significant variations in soil moisture, therefore very different communities have developed in the juniper forest. On the dry soil of the slightly higher ridges and sand ridges are lime‑avoiding hill meadows and oak‑oak‑hornbeam forests; in the depressions between them are alder‑ash riparian woods, and in some places willow‑sedge wet meadows have formed, characterized by sedges and rushes. The Rigóc stream flows through the area, having been widened in the 1930s to form a system of fish ponds. The Dráva Kisbók oxbow lake also belongs to the juniper forest.

In the primeval juniper forest live about 700 higher plant species, 230 vertebrate animal species and 3000 invertebrate animals. The juniper thickets were created as a result of meadow-forest farming, because the meadow animals avoided the prickly junipers. After this form of farming ceased, a large part of the area became forested, and although many specimens of juniper trees also remained, the new forests are rather composed of forest pines, sessile oaks, chestnut oaks, birches and trembling alders. In the undergrowth, bull thistle and spotted knapweed also occur. The most common species of the drier sandy areas are silver hairgrass, sheep sorrel, silvery lady's mantle, sharp oat grass and sand rush, but mosses, lichens and mouse-ear hawkweed are also characteristic. Among the rarer and more valuable plants are black stonecrop, sand thyme, sand stonecrop, sand straw thistle and the hidden orchid. In the wetter areas peat moss mats have also developed, and the rare willow-leaved water-cress and branched shield-fern also survive. The king's grass (Calamagrostis epigejos) lives in Hungary only here.

Among the insects the sand fritillary, the juniper jewel beetle, the antlion, the helmeted beetle and the praying mantis can be highlighted, while among the birds the black stork, the wood warbler, the gypsy wren, the herons, the lapwing, the buzzard and the bee-eater. The population of the marsh turtle of the lake frog is also very valuable.