Fauna and Flora

Great white egret (Silberreiher):

It is a large bird with white plumage which can reach one meter in height and weigh up to 950g. It has a yellow bill and black legs and feet; males and females are identical in appearance and juveniles look like non-breading adults.

The white egret is distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperature region of the world - in southern Europe and Asia it is rather localized.

Two-thirds of the great white egrets breed at Lake Neusiedl on the “Große Schilfinsel”.

Grey egret (Graureiher):

It is also a large bird, standing 90-100 cm tall, nearly 2 meter wing span and a weight of 1-2 kg. Its plumage is grey and a bit white, it has a pinkish-yellow bill and its neck is retraced.

The grey egret inhabits Europe and almost the whole world. It is some cm bigger than the great white egret. At Lake Neusiedl it is very rare because there are no own breeding sites. In the winter it is located at the Danube. Also the grey egrets breed on the “Große Schilfinsel” and rear there their children.

Grey goose (Graugans):

It has a bulky body, a thick long neck and a large head. Moreover it has pink legs and feet and an orange or pink bill; they reach up to 90cm, the plumage is grey-brown.

We can find it in many European countries and they also breed at Lake Neusiedl. They eat grass, root, cereal leaves and spilled grain.

Common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus):

The common pheasant is native to Russia, but because of the Romans (they liked to eat them) we can find it all over Europe. The cock has a long brown streaked black tail, the body plumage is gold- brown with green, purple and white markings and he has a white neck ring. The female is smaller and has a mottled brown plumage.  Pheasants live in grassland near water. Sometimes you can hear their famous calls “kok kok kok”, but you can’t see them in the air, because they prefer to run. They live on smaller animals, such as snakes or lizards and vegetable. It is a well-known gamebird and it is one of the world’s most hunted birds.

Seagull:

Appearance:

• plumage is usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings
• range size goes from 120g and 29 cm to 1.75kg and 76 cm
• a very resourceful, inquisitive and intelligent bird (highly social structure and a  complex method of communication for example mobbing behaviour if there are some other predators or intruders
• very long-lived birds because they can live up to a maximum of 49 years

Nutrition:

• carnivores:  live food, in particular crabs and small fish, or scavenge opportunistically

Habitat:

• mainly on the coast but can also be seen on inland waters and refuse tips(especially outside the breading season)
• very gregarious----> they are breeding in large colonies on coastal cliffs, grass slopes, islands, and sand dunes

Egg-laying and hatching:

• generally laid in May - a clutch consisting of 2-4
• are incubated by both sexes for between 28-30 days
• young are fed by both parents, and fly when they are about 5-6 weeks old

European Hare:

Appearance

• is larger and has longer ears and has longer legs than a rabbit
• body size goes from 50-70cm
•  full-grown adult ranges from 2.5 to 6.5kg
• run at speeds of up to 72km/h

Nutrition:

• herbivorous and therefore eats grasses and herbs during the summer months but changes feeding on twigs, bark, and the buds of young trees in winter.

Habitat:

• live in woods, velds and  dunes, they like relative warm places. Today we can find European Hares obviously in Europe and Central Asia:

Propagation:

• in spring hares can be seen  boxing, that is usually a female hitting a male, that shows that she´s not quite ready to mate or as a test of his determination.

European souslik (Spermophilus citellus):

The word souslik comes from Russian. The ground squirrel loves the sun, lives in prairies and steppes near lakes. Their size is more then 20cm and they have a yellow- grey furl and a white chin and throat. The tail is short and bushy. The European souslik feeds primarily on vegetation, nuts, seeds, and grains; but also birds' eggs. European sousliks mate only once a year, producing 2-9 youngs per birth. At lake Neusiedl sousliks can only live if the grass is short, so it’s very important that cows grass on the fields near the lake.

Salt flora

Plants typical of the sea coast grow in this type of soil (dried- out pool bottomsàsodium carbonate, sodium sulphate, magnesium sulphate and sodium chloride). The well-known are salt cress and pannonian sea Aster.

Salt cress (Thellungiella halophila); native to China; short life cycle; produces copious seeds; can self-pollinate; can be genetically transformed in Aradopsis; can grow with extreme saline conditions (500 mM NaCl).

Pannonian sea Aster (Aster tripolium); native to northern Europe in salt marshes; short live cycle; produces seeds; purple florets; lanceolate leaves;

Shelf:

It´s a large perennial grass which is found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world. It occurs along the margins of lakes, fens, marshes, and streams from the Arctic to the tropic. It is a broad-leafed grass, about 1.5 to 5 m (5 to 16.5 feet) tall, with feathery flower clusters and stiff, smooth stems. It´s flowers duced in late summer in a dense, dark purple panicle, about 20–50 cm long. Later they appear greyer due to the growth of long, silky hairs.