Stühe Nature Reserve: Mapping the Protected Forest Landscapes of the Delmenhorster Geest

The Stühe as a woodland has long been part of the rural landscape of the Dötlingen and Ganderkesee area, used both for forestry and for traditional grazing and harvesting of the surrounding meadows and small moors. The forest's role as a local recreation area began in 1898, when the Delmenhorst-Hesepe railway opened and the station at Immer became the Sunday outing destination for residents of Delmenhorst and Bremen. Within the same year the Gasthof Witte opened opposite the station, followed in the next few years by the Waldschlösschen inn at Immer and, to the west along the Bassumer Weg, the inn called Zum Hasen Ahlers, named after the local figure Hasen-Ahlers.

With the end of the Second World War, excursion traffic ceased almost entirely, and two of the three forest-edge inns had to close. The name Hasen-Ahlers was commemorated later in the trail that leads through the forest, while the inns themselves gradually disappeared from active use.

In February 1962, six fallow deer were brought from the Eilenriede in Hanover into an acclimatisation enclosure in Stühe, followed by a seventh animal; the herd was released into the forest by the end of 1962 and has since built up a self-sustaining population estimated at around 80 animals.

The forest's largest and oldest single tree, the Freeschenboom or Frieseneiche, with a trunk circumference of about 10 metres at its base, broke apart under its own weight in May 1889. In April 1981, the village community of Klattenhof and the district forester planted a successor oak at the fork towards Bergedorf in memory of both the original tree and the Hollandgänger tradition of seasonal labour migration to the Netherlands. The landscape received formal nature conservation recognition on 22 December 2018, with the establishment of the Naturschutzgebiet Stühe, created by integrating large parts of the older Landschaftsschutzgebiet; the two natural monuments Margaretenmoor and Schlatt im Stühe were absorbed into the new reserve.

The Stühe occupies a stretch of the Delmenhorster Geest, a glacially shaped, gently undulating plain of sandy and loamy soils that characterises the countryside southwest of Delmenhorst. The forest is elongated east to west, about 2.8 kilometres long and 0.8 to 1.5 kilometres wide, creating a compact but clearly bordered woodland block on the otherwise open farmland of the Geest.

Within the larger forest area, small landscape features create a finely textured mosaic. The eastern margin is framed by the Immer Bäke, a short tributary of the Welse. Depressions within and adjoining the woodland hold boggy hollows and former kettle-like small waterbodies; one of them became the protected natural monument Margaretenmoor, a birch bogwood-filled damp hollow, and another, the Schlatt im Stühe, an old lake basin now carpeted in Sphagnum mosses.

Along the northern edge, the Welsburger Wiesen meadows extend the green character of the area, providing a transition between forest and open farmland. Hedgerows of the regional Wallhecken type border the woodland on several sides, while a district road crosses the forest from west to east, and the Delmenhorst-Hesepe railway forms part of its eastern boundary.

Stühe is ecologically a lowland north-German forest reserve, yet unusually rich in forest types for its size. The core community is the Hainsimsen-Buchenwald, a beech woodland on moderately acidic soils dominated by European beech with minor amounts of pedunculate oak. Accompanying it are oak-hornbeam woods, acidophilous oak forests, and small but ecologically significant patches of bog forest, alder floodplain forest, and hedgerow.

The beech stands carry a well-developed understorey of forest grasses, sedges, and woodland herbs, alongside ericaceous plants such as bilberry and Sphagnum mosses in moister pockets. The oak-hornbeam communities are richer in flowering woodland species, with wood anemone, enchanter's nightshade, greater stitchwort, and climbing corydalis, while the acidophilous oak stands are marked by plants such as bracken and common bent.

Wet features are integral to the reserve. The Margaretenmoor contains a birch bog forest with Sphagnum mosses and sedges, including cottongrass species, while the Schlatt im Stühe is a small Sphagnum-covered basin. The stillwaters in and around Stühe carry floating and emergent aquatic plants such as broad-leaved pondweed, frogbit, floating sweet-grass, and white water-lily, reflecting the influence of groundwater in the local depressions.

The forest's structure is an important element of its nature value: the woodland is characterised by a high share of old trees and substantial deadwood, providing habitat continuity for fungi, saproxylic insects, and cavity-using birds and bats over many decades.

The most distinctive mammalian feature of Stühe is its free-ranging population of European fallow deer, introduced from the Eilenriede in Hanover in 1962 and now estimated at around 80 animals. The animals roam the forest and adjoining meadows, shaping forest regeneration and contributing to the maintenance of open glades within the woodland.

The reserve's high proportion of old trees and deadwood makes it particularly important for saproxylic insects, fungi, and the bird and bat species that depend on tree cavities, bark crevices, and decaying wood. The mosaic of beech, oak, bog forest, stillwaters, and meadows supports a wide range of breeding birds typical of north-west German broadleaf woodland complexes, including woodland raptors and woodpeckers, while the open water bodies and surrounding meadows provide conditions for amphibians and dragonflies associated with small forest pools.

Wet-edge features, particularly the Margaretenmoor and Schlatt im Stühe with their Sphagnum-rich vegetation, provide habitat for wetland-specialist invertebrates and plants beyond what the surrounding beech forest alone could support.

Stühe matters for conservation on three overlapping scales. Locally, almost the entire forest block is protected as the Naturschutzgebiet Stühe, designation NSG WE 312, established on 22 December 2018, and is supervised by the Oldenburg district as the responsible lower nature conservation authority. Within this area, the Margetenmoor and the Schlatt im Stühe are protected as natural monuments.

At the European level the area coincides almost exactly with an EU FFH site of about 209 hectares, recognising it as part of the Natura 2000 network that protects habitats and species of European importance. The presence of specific habitat types, including Hainsimsen-Buchenwald, oak-hornbeam woodland, acidophytic oak forest, bog forest, and alder-ash floodplain woodland, is what underpins this classification.

The remaining portions of the wider Stühe area are incorporated into the Landschaftsschutzgebiet Welsetal und Stühe, ensuring that the surrounding landscape along the Welse river valley and the adjoining meadows retain their open, traditional character. The reserve's value is enhanced by a large share of old and deadwood, an essential structural element for the long-term survival of specialist woodland species, and by the presence of fallow deer as a long-established large herbivore shaping the forest's dynamics.

Stühe occupies a small but meaningful place in the local cultural memory of the Dötlingen and Ganderkesee area. The forest gained cultural visibility as a Sunday outing destination after 1898, when the Delmenhorst-Hesepe railway made it easily reachable from the industrial towns of Delmenhorst and Bremen, and three inns opened along the forest edge to serve day-trippers. After the Second World War this leisure tradition ended abruptly and two of the inns were closed, marking a quiet transition in the role of the forest within local life.

Earlier still, the forest had been a gathering point for the Hollandgänger, seasonal labour migrants who would set out together from the Freeschenboom, a monumental historical oak known also as the Frieseneiche, to seek work in the Netherlands as grass mowers, peat cutters, or sailors. The oak itself fell in 1889 after centuries of life, and a successor oak planted in 1981 honours that tradition. The Hasen-Ahlers-Weg, named after a 19th-century local poacher who lived in a sheepfold in the forest, similarly ties the woodland to the rural social history of the region. The Romantics also made Stühe visible through art: in 1865 the landscape painter Louis Preller published a woodcut of the heron-rich core of the forest, capturing the area's image for readers of the widely circulated Illustrirte Zeitung.

Stühe's standout features are its well-developed beech forest complexes with abundant old growth and deadwood, the tightly interwoven mosaic of beech, oak, oak-hornbeam, bog, and floodplain forests, and the inclusion of two natural-monument-protected small bogs. The free-ranging fallow deer herd introduced in 1962 adds a distinctive large-mammah dimension that is rare among nature reserves in the district.

Visitors walking the Hasen-Ahlers-Weg pass at the same time through the historical heart of the forest, with the Klattenhof-Bergedorf fork and the site of the Freeschenboom remaining meaningful local landmarks. The integration of the reserve into the larger Landschaftsschutzgebiet Welsetal und Stühe provides a wider landscape setting in which woodland, meadows, hedgerows, and river valley can be appreciated together.

Stühe can be visited throughout the year, but the late spring and early summer months are particularly rewarding for walking the forest paths, when the beech canopy is fully in leaf, the woodland floor is rich with flowering plants such as wood anemones and climbing corydalis, and the stillwaters and meadows support active amphibian and insect life. Late summer brings warm evenings and the strong visual contrast between bright green meadows and the deeper-toned woodland.

Autumn is the classic season for enjoying the mature beech forest at its most colourful, with the russet canopy, the first fallen leaves, and the beginning of visible fungal fruiting bodies across the high deadwood share. In winter the beech forest offers quiet, open views through the bare stands and the chance to see fallow deer more readily against the leafless backdrop, especially in the more open meadow-margin areas along the Strüher Wiesen and Welsburger Wiesen.