Kamtchia, Nature reserve at Kamchia River mouth, Bulgaria

Kamtchia is a reserve in the lower Kamchia River valley, about 25 km south of Varna, near the resorts of Kamchia and Shkorpilovtsi. Its core area covers 842.1 ha, mostly alluvial longose forest of ash, field elm and pedunculate oak, with trees over 150 years old and more than 35 m tall. It also takes in marshes such as Lesinski and Maznia azmak, old river arms where white and yellow water lilies grow.

The area was given protected status in 1951 to safeguard floodplain forests that once covered much larger stretches of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. This made it one of the first formal steps to protect one of the region's last remaining river delta systems.

The name longoz, used for the floodplain forest, comes from Turkish and refers to the wooded marshes at the river mouth. Each autumn more than 60,000 white storks pass overhead, and the reserve is Bulgaria's only wintering site for the red-crested pochard.

The reserve lies about 25 km south of Varna, between the villages of Staro Oryahovo, Shkorpilovtsi and Bliznatsi, in the Avren and Dolni Chiflik municipalities. The core area covers 842.1 ha, with a 230 ha buffer zone, and stretches some 40 km in length. A bridge that once let visitors enter was destroyed, but the river mouth can still be crossed on foot to the beach area, where litter from the Varna port and the Kamchia resort washes ashore.

The longose groves here are described in the sources as the best representatives of their kind in Europe, and the forest canopy reaches up to 50 m in places. Trees over 150 years old and taller than 35 m stand among about 40 species, with field elm and ash predominating. Look for liana curtains of Clematis, Smilax and Periploca on the wetter ground.