Kudensee

Just a stone’s throw off the Kiel Canal and a few miles up from its southern entryway, the Kudensee is a small steppe lake whose reed belts and gray willows harbor shorebirds such as bitterns, waders and green plovers. Its surrounding 249-hectare (615-acre) bird reserve also protects a number of migratory bird species. The narrow, eight-kilometer-long (five-mile-long) Büttler Canal, dug in the 1700s, links the lake with the Kiel Canal and provides more opportunities for viewing passing birdlife.