page_title: Dithmarschen
section_title: Flora and fauna
hierarchical_section_title: Dithmarschen / Geography / Flora and fauna
caption_attribution_description: Phoca vitulina&#160;; Colony (Helgoland/Düne) Dansk: Spættet sæl Deutsch: Seehund English: Common Seal Esperanto: Ordinara foko Suomi: Kirjohylje Français&#160;: Phoque commun Magyar: Borjúfóka Íslenska: Landselur Italiano: Phoca vitulina 日本語: ゼニガタアザラシ Lietuvių: Paprastasis ruonis Nederlands: Gewone zeehond Norsk bokmål: Steinkobbe Polski: Foka pospolita Português: Foca-comum Svenska: Knubbsäl
context_page_description: Dithmarschen is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Nordfriesland, Schleswig-Flensburg, Rendsburg-Eckernförde, and Steinburg, by the state of Lower Saxony, and by the North Sea.
  From the 13th century up to 1559 Dithmarschen was an independent peasants' republic within the Holy Roman Empire and a member of the Hanseatic League.
context_section_description: While the Geest has some woods, trees are found in marshlands only in form of wind protection around houses or villages. Traditional are the Knicks, tree rows with strong undergrowth to protect agricultural land from the wind.
  In Dithmarschen lay several bogs. A special position is taken with the "Weißes Moor" (White bog), the only bog still existing in quite natural shape in the Schleswig-Holstein marsh land.
  Part of the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park is in Dithmarschen. It is the most important habitat in the district. Here live many molluscs, including Bivalvia and Gastropeda, Worms and Crustacea, which are welcome nourishment to bigger species. Especially fish use the Wadden Sea as a "Kindergarten" where they can raise their offspring in a protected environment. Although many species of birds settle permanently in the Wadden Sea, use it as a winter habitat or as a resting place. Typical birds in Dithmarschen are dunlin, red knot, bar-tailed godwit, lapwings, charadriidae, eurasian oystercatcher, many species of anatinae- and gulls, terns, sandwich tern, pied avocet, Brent goose and barnacle goose. 200,000 common shelducks alone come in August, The shelducks lose their feathers in the Wadden Sea and therefore are for around three weeks unable to fly. It is almost the whole Common Shelduck colony in North Western Europe. Big Salt marsh are at the Friedrichskoog coast and in the Neufeld Bay.
  Three sand banks, Trischen, Tertius and Blauort are in the sea. They are some of only a few still natural habitats at the German coast and of importance to sea birds and seals. After futile attempts in the 1930s to make them habitable to humans, they are now part of the national park, forbidden to humans. Many birds preferring wet grasslands live in the Eider-Treene Valley.
caption: Common seal on a sand bank
exif: {}