Guide
Seyfe Lake is a shallow steppe lake in a tectonic hollow northeast of Kırşehir, in Mucur district, and it is protected as a nature conservation area together with its Ramsar site and buffer zone. One thing to know before travelling: the ground slopes so little that the size of the lake changes a great deal with rainfall and season, so what is water on one visit may be dry ground on another.
The figures the directorate gives for the area do not resolve into one number. The area record states 5,501.22 hectares. The text says the site totals 49,458 hectares of which 10,700 are Ramsar; that 23,585 hectares were declared a first-degree natural site on 17 August 1989; that 10,978 hectares were given nature conservation area status in 1990; and that the 10,700-hectare portion entered the Ramsar list in 1994. The page does not explain which boundary each figure follows. The basin is a closed one, ringed by fairly large mountains to the southwest and northwest and by low hills elsewhere, and land around the lake is mostly privately owned with some treasury parcels among it. Six villages stand around the shore: Seyfe, Gümüşkümbet, Yazıkınık, Budak, Kızıldağ and Eskidoğanlı.
Birds are the reason to come. The directorate describes the lake as holding one of the world's largest flamingo colonies, and as a stopover in autumn for hundreds of thousands of ducks and storks. Teal, pelicans, herons, plovers, geese, avocets, gulls, bitterns and terns feed and rest there, and in spring thousands of birds of various species nest on the islets in the eastern part of the lake. The directorate states that 480,000 birds have been recorded living there together.
The best views are from the mound near Seyfe village; it is also possible to come down to the shore from the Badilli quarter of Seyfe to watch the lake and the flamingos. At the visitor information centre there is a picnic and day-use area with toilets and barbecue units, and walking is possible along the shore and in the picnic ground. Capacity is 100 visitors and 20 vehicles, with hours of 09:00 to 18:00. Seyfe is 30 kilometres from Kırşehir and 220 from Ankara; from Mucur centre on the Ankara-Kayseri road, take the Mucur-Karahasanlı road for 10 kilometres.
- Designated
- 26.08.1990
