Matsalu

Matsalu is built around a bay barely a metre or two deep, the delta of the Kasari river, and roughly three thousand hectares of reeds — one of the largest reed beds in Europe. It sits squarely on the East Atlantic Flyway, and in migration season the numbers stop being birdwatching and start being weather: tens of thousands of cranes staging in autumn, clouds of barnacle geese and whooper swans in spring, ducks rafting on the bay in both.

The place has been worked as long as it has been wild. Coastal and floodplain meadows here were mown and grazed for centuries, which is precisely what keeps them open for waders and orchids; the park continues the mowing where farming stopped. A nature reserve since 1957 and a Ramsar site from Estonia's first day in the convention, Matsalu was upgraded to national park in 2004 — the only Estonian park created primarily for birds.

What's worth knowing before you go

This is a park you mostly watch rather than walk. A ring of observation towers does the work: Haeska on the north shore (famous day-list records), Kloostri over the floodplain forest, Keemu and Suitsu for the bay and reeds. The visitor centre in Penijõe manor stocks the current tide of sightings.

Peak passage runs mid-April to mid-May and again September into October; crane evenings in late September are the signature spectacle. Bring a scope if you have one — distances on the bay are long — and check tower access in spring, when floodwater or nesting closures can shuffle the map.