Montepulciano Lake Nature Reserve

The Lago di Montepulciano Nature Reserve is located a few kilometres east of the village, in the southern part of Valdichiana, right on the Umbrian border. As well as the whole lake, it covers part of the Maestro della Chiana canal and some of the immediate farmland.

The lakes of Montepulciano and Chiusi are what remains of the vast marshland that spanned this area until the Medicean era. Today it constitutes one of central Italy’s most important wetlands.

The reserve lies on the migration route that stretches across Tuscany from the Arno’s Valley to the Tiber’s, and it therefore represents an important feeding ground for the birds that fly every year from Africa to Europe. Marsh reeds form the bulk of the reserve’s vegetation, but one can also find some species which have virtually disappeared from Italian wetlands, like water lilies, the rare orchid Anacampis palustris, and the equally rare fern Ophioglossum. This is the nesting ground of the Eurasian bittern, a type of heron seldom seen in Europe, and also of the little bittern and the red heron. The lake is home to the great crested grebe, the common kingfisher, the common moorhen and the ferruginous duck, a diving duck considered at risk of global extinction.

Accessibility information: riservalagodimontepulciano.it