Within the borders of Suluova district, on the edge of the broad farming plain between Amasya and Merzifon, the Yedikır Dam is a water structure built for irrigation. A few years after its construction it became one of the most important wetlands in the region, and the lake, where hundreds of bird species stop over or breed, has come to be known by the name given to it by the Amasya Governorate: the Yedikuğular Bird Paradise, the "Paradise of the Seven Swans". It lies about thirty-five kilometres from the provincial centre of Amasya; its distance from the centre of Suluova is given as seven kilometres in some sources and eight in others, and its distance to Merzifon as ten, twelve or seventeen kilometres. One end of the area reaches toward the village of Cürlü in Suluova. Some accounts describe the lake as one of the rare routes where conditions are most favourable for wildlife to thrive, and say that it hosts more than a hundred bird species in summer.

The Tersakan Stream and the Setting of the Lake

The water that feeds Yedikır is the Tersakan Stream, which crosses the northern plains of Amasya from end to end. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, in the first volume of his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), counts this watercourse among the principal rivers of the sanjak and writes that its name, "the one that flows backwards", comes from its running from north to south, against the direction of the other waters of the region. In the same passage he notes that in the Arabic work Ahbâru'l-İbâd the river appears as "en-Nehrü'l-Maklûb", "the inverted river", and concludes from this that the name Tersakan had been in use among the Turks since the first years of the conquest. He adds that old documents also record it under the names "Astifonos" and "İstiyotos". Elsewhere in the work, describing Lucullus's campaign against Mithridates, Yasar says that the river Lykos of the ancient sources "must be the stream we now call Tersakan"; this is a conjecture, and the author does not present it as settled fact.

According to Yasar, the river issues from the large lake south-east of Ladik. Fed by six streams descending from the Seki, Kızoğlu, Polad and Çakır Gümüş summer pastures, this lake was known for its fish and its reed beds; the Tersakan rises there, passes north of Ladik, east of Havza and through the middle of Suluova, enters the northern gorge of Amasya and joins the Yeşilırmak above Bahçeler İçi. Its flow is permanent; it shrinks in summer and swells in spring. Because it overflowed and caused damage when in spate, people also called it Deliçay, the "Mad Stream", and the mills, vineyards and gardens along both its banks drew on its water. A study of the lake made at the beginning of the twenty-first century describes the river's present course in much the same way: rising in Lake Ladik, the stream passes east of Havza, merges with the Gümüş Stream at the edge of Suluova, receives the Derinöz Stream coming down from the slopes of Akdağ, and flows into the Yeşilırmak near the Kunç Bridge on the way out of Amasya.

The dam was built precisely where this river emerges onto the Suluova plain, west of Suluova and south-east of Merzifon. The waters of the Tersakan enter the lake at its north-eastern end; in the north-western part of the lake the bottom is covered with sandy sediment. The water brought by spring floods and the releases made for irrigation in summer keep the lake in constant motion throughout the year. The stream that Yasar described a century ago, swelling in spring and dwindling in summer, remains today the main factor governing the lake's water level and the life within it.

Building an Irrigation Dam

The Yedikır Dam was built by the State Hydraulic Works (DSİ) on the Tersakan Stream between 1982 and 1985. It is an earthfill dam. At normal water level the lake covers about 5.93 square kilometres; the local press's statement that the lake occupies an area of about 600 hectares agrees with this figure. The dam's chief purpose is to irrigate the farmland of the Suluova plain, and it serves an area of about 7,403 hectares; a study based on the DSİ regional report calls it the largest irrigation dam in the surrounding region. The name Yedikır comes from the locality of the "seven fields" (yedi kır) where the structure was built.

The figures for the dam's volume and height do not agree from source to source. Some compilations give the body volume as 63 million cubic metres, the height above the stream bed as 28 metres and the reservoir volume as 6.3 million cubic metres. A doctoral thesis citing the DSİ report of 2004, however, gives the body volume as 6,300,000 cubic metres and the height as 25.20 metres, and states that with its volume of 60 million cubic metres the lake is the largest irrigation reservoir in the area; in the list of natural assets published by the Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanisation, too, the reservoir volume is 60.30 million cubic metres. It is therefore likely that the body and reservoir volumes were transposed in the first compilation, but since the original project documents of the dam are not available to us, no firm judgement can be made.

A fish-breeding facility run by the DSİ stands on the dam site, and the fish raised there are released into the lake; in the 2000s this facility was described as the largest fish hatchery in the Central Black Sea region. Rudd, carp and pike live in the lake; the thesis based on DSİ records adds European perch, silver bream and chub. Because angling is permitted, Yedikır has become one of the few lakes in the Black Sea Region suitable for line fishing. The land north-east of the lake has been afforested with pines, while orchards, poplars and willows line the shores facing the plain.

How the Bird Paradise Got Its Name

Shortly after construction was completed in 1985, many birds were seen settling on the lake and migrants began to use it as a stopover. By a decision of the Kayseri Board for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Assets dated 17 August 1989, the area containing the Yedikır Dam and the Yedikuğular Bird Paradise was designated a first-degree natural site; the area was at the same time declared a wildlife protection area. With the protection decision, the Amasya Governorate gave the lake the name Yedikuğular Bird Paradise. Local tradition links the name to the flock of swans that comes to the lake in winter; in a DSİ report from the mid-2000s that listed the area's birds, the swan, ruddy shelduck, cormorant, little egret, grey heron and night heron were named among the lake's chief birds, and it was written that the area had been placed under protection as the Seven Swans Bird Paradise because of these birds. Today part of the area has also been laid out by Suluova Municipality as the Yedi Kuğular Nation's Garden.

The size of the protected area varies from source to source. Some accounts give the total as about 900 hectares, of which roughly 600 hectares are said to be the lake itself; a text from the governorate states that the wetland ecosystem covers 817 hectares. One news report, meanwhile, refers to the area as 900 decares. These differences may depend on whether the measurement covers the lake, the protection boundary or the surrounding recreation and forest areas; the sources available to us do not explain the distinction. Yedikır is counted among Turkey's important wetlands. It qualifies as an Important Bird Area because of the large numbers of ruddy shelduck that stay here in the months outside the breeding season; in winter it shelters significant numbers of waterbirds, above all teal, mallard and great black-headed gull. The DSİ report of 2004 also describes the lake as one of 44 wetlands in Turkey of international importance under the waterbird criteria of the Ramsar Convention; this description does not mean that the site was formally entered on the Ramsar list, and no other source mentions such a designation.

The Lake's Water and Its Life

The link in the chain that comes before the birds is the tiny life within the water. The doctoral thesis prepared by Faruk Maraşlıoğlu at Ondokuz Mayıs University under the supervision of Arif Gönülol and completed in 2007 is the first study of the algal flora of Yedikır. Between November 2004 and May 2006, water samples were taken every month from three points on the lake, from the north-eastern end where the Tersakan enters, from the middle of the lake and from its north-western part, both at the surface and at a depth of two metres, and the physical and chemical properties of the water were measured in the DSİ laboratory in Samsun. The study identified a total of 126 taxa belonging to eight groups of algae.

The plankton of the lake changes markedly with the seasons. In spring and summer the diatom Cyclotella ocellata multiplies, in summer the green alga Crucigenia fenestrata, and in winter the small Kirchneriella lunaris. In autumn the blue-green alga Aphanizomenon flos-aquae comes to the fore; this species bloomed in November 2004 and in the autumn of 2005, in some months making up most of the organisms counted at the sampling stations. Green and blue-green algae dominate at the surface, flagellated species at a depth of two metres. Throughout the study the water mostly looked blue, blue-green or green, and it turned turbid especially in the rainy seasons, when the plankton multiplied.

The measurements show the lake to be a slightly alkaline body of water: pH values ranged between 6.8 and 9.0. Dissolved oxygen moved in the opposite direction to temperature, with the lowest value, 5.10 milligrams per litre, measured in July 2005 and the highest, 10.20 milligrams, in February. Chlorophyll-a fell to around 3 micrograms per litre in winter and rose to 39 micrograms in July 2005. The trophic indices calculated from these values classify the water as eutrophic, that is, rich in nutrients. The researcher nevertheless treats this result with caution: noting that, because water is released for irrigation in summer and the current increases with the floods of spring, the algae could not reach the growth seen in other lakes in these seasons, and that species of oligotrophic and mesotrophic character are also present, he defines Yedikır as a mesotrophic lake in transition from an oligotrophic state toward eutrophy. The same study also records that organic enrichment from untreated waste, nutrient salts and sediment load were an important source of stress for the lake in certain months.

The surroundings of the lake lie in a transitional belt between the continental climate of Central Anatolia and the climate of the Black Sea. In Suluova the mean annual temperature between 1995 and 2005 was measured at around 14 degrees Celsius, and most of the precipitation fell in spring and winter. The first frosts come in October and the last in April, in some years in the first half of May. The district's climate is shaped by Akdağ, which rises to about 2,000 metres, and by the Canik Mountains, which reach about 1,500 metres.

The Number of Bird Species

There is no single figure for how many bird species have been seen at Yedikır, because the numbers have changed with the years and with the scope of the count. According to the DSİ report of 2004, more than 34 bird species belonging to 16 families lived on the lake. A governor of Amasya who toured the area said that the number of species, once around seventy, had risen to around a hundred, that the bird community was dominated especially by white pelicans and coots, and that this vitality was growing day by day; the governor added that investment in the area was being carried out by the DSİ, the National Parks service and Suluova Municipality. A news report published in 2022 spoke of 230 species around the lake, listing among them the white pelican, demoiselle crane, bean goose, little grebe, cormorant, grey heron and great egret, greater white-fronted goose, greylag goose, ruddy shelduck, wigeon, gadwall, teal, mallard, pintail, pochard, goosander, coot, Eurasian curlew and black-headed gull. News reports from 2024 and 2025, however, used the figure given by the zoologist Murat Karavin of Amasya University: about 250 species have been observed in and around Amasya, and about 170 of them have been reported at the Yedikır Dam Lake and its surroundings.

Karavin explains that this number was reached by evaluating the observations and databases compiled over the years by ornithologists and birdwatchers. The rise of the figure from the thirties to a hundred and seventy within twenty years is probably due as much to the growth in observation as to changes in the bird population itself. The lake is one of the sites of the midwinter waterbird counts carried out jointly in the Central and Eastern Black Sea by the Ornithology Research Centre of Ondokuz Mayıs University and the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks. In these counts, held internationally between January and March and conducted in Turkey since 1967, Yedikır is one of the region's sixteen counting sites, alongside the Kızılırmak and Yeşilırmak deltas, Lake Ladik, Lake Kaz in Tokat and the Almus Dam.

Some species spend the winter here, while others merely stop over during migration. Mallard, teal, cormorant and great black-headed gull are mentioned among the species that winter at the site; the white-tailed eagle and the short-eared owl are among the other birds seen here. Swans, wild geese, wild ducks, ruddy shelducks and cormorants are also regularly observed on and around the lake. The coexistence of different figures can be explained by the seasonal and variable nature of bird counts in a wetland; the sources do not specify which figure was obtained by which criterion.

White Pelicans and Pelican Island

The bird that makes Yedikır important on a national scale is the white pelican. Of all the wetlands in Turkey, the white pelicans that migrate from Africa to Anatolia choose only two as breeding grounds: the Yedikır Dam Lake in Suluova and Lake Aktaş in Ardahan. The island in the middle of the lake is known as Pelican Island because the birds, finding it sheltered and free of human disturbance, use it as their breeding ground. According to Karavin, the pelicans now arrive at the beginning of March, helped by environmental factors. Having completed the breeding season here, the birds set off again toward Africa with their young in autumn; at the end of summer, flocks beating their wings over the lake with their young show that preparations for migration have begun.

The arrival date of the pelicans has moved earlier in recent years. In a statement made in March 2019, Karavin said that the white pelicans used to arrive every year in April and May, but that for the past two years they had begun arriving in March; he said that on that day they had observed twenty to twenty-five birds out of a flock numbering up to eighty, and that they expected the island to fill with pelicans in the coming days. The good water level of the lake that year was cited as one of the most important reasons the birds chose it. Karavin made this observation together with students from the Suluova Vocational School of Amasya University at the observatory belonging to the Amasya Branch of Nature Conservation and National Parks. About a hundred bird species in the area can also be watched from the observatory through cameras placed around the site.

The white pelican, Pelecanus onocrotalus, is a large-bodied, broad-winged waterbird with a skin pouch beneath its bill. It feeds on fish, favours broad, shallow wetlands and reservoirs, and breeds in colonies; in the breeding season it prefers islands or hard-to-reach shores away from people and land predators. Most of the populations breeding in the Palearctic are migratory and winter in Africa. The island in the middle of Yedikır, reached from the shore by rowing boat, offers a structure that suits these preferences.

The state of Pelican Island depends on the lake's water level. In September 2018, when drought and excessive irrigation drew the water down by several metres, the island joined the shore and, in Karavin's words, could be reached on foot; with the winter rains the lake returned to its former appearance the following spring. The same thing happened again in September 2020: the road to the island emerged, and visitors crossed to it on foot or by car. This road is the old Amasya-Merzifon connecting road, which has lain beneath the reservoir since 1985. A local resident who walked over to the island said that it was the first time in twenty-five years he had seen the water recede so far. A news report from July 2024 also states that the water in the reservoir had begun to recede in recent years because of drought. In June 2026, however, it was reported that with the rains the lake had reached 97 percent of capacity, that the old road was once again under water and that the island could no longer be reached except by boat; a visitor on the shore said he had never seen the lake so full. Because the lake is an irrigation reservoir, its water level varies from year to year with the irrigation needs of the plain and with rainfall.

The Return of the Demoiselle Crane

The second important resident of the area is the demoiselle crane. This bird, celebrated in Turkish folk songs, is endangered in Anatolia. The Breeding Bird Atlas of Turkey, published in 2019 and based on birdwatchers' observations between 2014 and 2017, had reported that no breeding population of the demoiselle crane remained in Turkey; the species passed through the country only on migration. About seventeen years had gone by since the last known nesting in the country.

This picture changed in the spring of 2021. Engin Bıyıkoğlu, a bird photographer from Çorum who had long been travelling to Suluova to make observations, noticed during a shoot in May a demoiselle crane, a bird not yet on his own list, incubating on its eggs, and filmed it. After Bıyıkoğlu informed the Nature Conservation and National Parks officials, ornithologists and biologists, the area containing the nest was placed under protection. For some time afterwards the photographers and researchers who went to the area found no trace of the birds; but at the beginning of August Bıyıkoğlu filmed the male and female again, together with their young, in a sunflower field. It was thus documented that the pair had stayed in the area for about three months and that the chick had hatched and completed its feeding period of two and a half to three months. Karavin, too, relates that in 2021 birdwatchers and teams from the Nature Conservation and National Parks Branch Directorate found a pair of demoiselle cranes at Yedikır, that the pair was placed under protection and that it was later observed in the same area with its young.

The cranes returned to Suluova in the following years as well. The pair was seen in the area again in 2022. In April 2023, under the Crane Action Plan and Monitoring Work carried out by the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks, teams from the 11th Regional Directorate watched a demoiselle crane incubating in a new nest in the areas where breeding had been seen in previous years. In the monitoring carried out in June 2024 it was reported that the pair filmed over the previous two years was again raising its young in the same area, and that the teams were following both the new chicks and the previous year's young. A news report from March 2025 wrote that the demoiselle cranes were expected again in April.

Whooper Swans and Other Rare Visitors

The rare birds seen at the site do not end there. The bean goose, observed only two or three times in Turkey, has been recorded at Yedikır. In recent years the whooper swans that come to the lake to spend the winter have also drawn the attention of birdwatchers; Karavin describes this swan as one of the largest flying birds in the world. Whooper swans do not breed in Turkey; they come from the north to spend the winter and migrate north again with the spring. Feeding on aquatic plants, these large, long-necked, snow-white birds recall the swans said to have given the lake its name. In January 2025 officials of the Amasya Branch of Nature Conservation and National Parks carrying out winter monitoring saw a flock of twelve whooper swans on the lake; the previous winter only a single whooper swan had been recorded there.

Karavin regards the fact that both the white pelican and the demoiselle crane breed at this site, and that the rarely encountered whooper swan is seen here, as evidence that the area is an ecologically important habitat. Besides birds, the area is also home to wild mammals. In June 2026 the local press reported that the number of birds had increased along with the rise in the water level.

Layout of the Site and Visiting

The surroundings of Yedikır have been laid out as an excursion and picnic area while preserving their natural character. On the lakeshore and among the pine trees there are walking trails, sports grounds such as basketball and tennis courts, picnic tables, gazebos, children's playgrounds and small social facilities run by the municipality. The walking paths through the pine forest suit day trips and camping, and the lakeshore suits angling. The lake's adoption as a recreation spot is nothing new; in the mid-2000s, too, it was described as the most popular picnic area in the region thanks to its natural beauty, walking trail, municipal facilities, fish hatchery and amateur fishing. In spring and summer it is a regular stop for visitors from Suluova, Merzifon and Amasya. Inspections by Amasya governors of the facilities and the observatory have also been made public; on one of these visits the governor said that Yedikır, which despite being an artificial lake had quickly become a very important wetland, was also an important recreation spot for Merzifon and Suluova.

A news report from the governorate relates that the Governor of Amasya, inspecting facilities under renovation, toured the shores of the reservoir watching the birds, was briefed on the bird species in the protected site and chatted with citizens spending the weekend picnicking there.

The observatory set up by the Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks provides a point from which the birds can be watched through binoculars without being disturbed. The Yedikır Visitor Centre and Bird Observation House on the site serves as an out-of-school learning space, giving students the chance to do practical work in natural science, ecology and environmental protection; the centre is said to be open on weekdays from 08:00 to 17:00 and closed at weekends. The centre's visiting rules also set out how birdwatching should be done: not damaging the vegetation, avoiding loud noise and sudden movements during observation, using only the walking paths and observation points, not feeding the birds and not throwing waste into the water are chief among them.

Notes for Birdwatching

The most productive hours for birdwatching are early morning and the last light of evening. Taking binoculars and, if possible, a camera with a telephoto lens makes observation easier. To avoid startling the birds, one should move quietly and slowly. Visits in spring and autumn, coinciding with the migration periods, are the most productive in terms of variety; white pelicans arrive on the site from the beginning of March and at the end of summer begin preparing for migration with their young. In winter whooper swans, ruddy shelducks, mallard, teal and cormorants can be seen. Because the water level changes from year to year, the view from the shore changes too; when the water recedes it becomes easier to approach the birds, but in that case keeping one's distance matters all the more for the birds in the nesting area.

Chronology

1982-1985: The Yedikır Dam is built by the State Hydraulic Works on the Tersakan Stream for irrigation; the old Amasya-Merzifon road disappears beneath the lake.

1989: By a decision of the Kayseri Board for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Assets dated 17 August, the reservoir and its surroundings become a first-degree natural site; the area is declared a wildlife protection area and is named the Yedikuğular Bird Paradise by the Amasya Governorate.

2004: A DSİ report counts more than 34 bird species belonging to 16 families on the lake.

2004-2006: Between November 2004 and May 2006 the algal flora of the lake is studied and 126 taxa are identified.

2018: In September the water recedes because of drought and irrigation, and the island joins the shore.

2019: The white pelicans arrive in March, as in the previous year; the Breeding Bird Atlas of Turkey reports that no breeding population of the demoiselle crane remains in the country.

2020: In September the water recedes again and the road to Pelican Island is exposed.

2021: In May an incubating demoiselle crane is filmed and the nesting area is placed under protection; at the beginning of August the pair is seen with its chick.

2022: The pair of demoiselle cranes is seen again; 230 bird species are mentioned for the area.

2023: In April a demoiselle crane is monitored incubating in a new nest.

2024: In June the demoiselle cranes are reported to be raising their young in the same area again; the water is reported to be receding because of drought; the area is said to host about 170 species.

2025: In January twelve whooper swans are counted on the lake.

2026: In June the lake reaches 97 percent of capacity, and the old road is under water once more.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, pp. 105, 202, 277 (the Tersakan River, Lake Ladik, the Lykos).

Academic studies

  • Faruk Maraşlıoğlu, Yedikır Baraj Gölü (Amasya-Türkiye) Fitoplanktonu ve Mevsimsel Değişimi Üzerine Bir Araştırma, doctoral thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Samsun, 2007.

Official sources

  • Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation, Samsun Provincial Directorate, "Amasya Sit Alanları ve Tabiat Varlıkları"; Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Ornithology".
  • Türkiye Kültür Portalı, "Yedikır Baraj Gölü (Yedikuğular Kuş Cenneti)", places to visit in Amasya.

Other sources

  • Anadolu Ajansı, "Sulama barajı olarak yapılan Yedikır Barajı 230 kuş türüne ev sahipliği yapıyor", 10 December 2022; "Amasya'daki Yedikır Baraj Gölü 170 kuş türüne ev sahipliği yapıyor", 26 July 2024.
  • Amasya Governorate, "Amasyamızın doğal güzelliklerinden Yedikır Barajı ve Yedikuğular Kuş Cenneti ziyaretçilerin uğrak yeri olmaya devam ediyor"; Suluova District Governorate, "Türkiye'de iki üreme alanı bulunan ak pelikanların üreme alanlarından birisi de ilçemiz".
  • Habertürk, "Ak pelikanlar Amasya'ya yine erken geldi", 21 March 2019; İhlas Haber Ajansı, "Ak pelikan ve telli turnaların yuvası Yedikır Baraj Gölü", 11 March 2025; Mynet, "Yürüyerek ulaşıyorlar", 29 September 2020.
  • Cumhuriyet (İHA), "Türkülere konu olan telli turnalar 17 yıl sonra ilk kez Türkiye'de yuva kurdu", 6 August 2021; Türkgün, "Nesli tehlike altında: Telli turnalar Amasya'da yuva yaptı", 18 April 2023; TRT Haber (AA), "Amasya'da yavru büyütme dönemindeki telli turnalar görüntülendi", 18 June 2024. cumhuriyet.com.tr
  • NTV (İHA), "Kuş Cenneti'nin nadir görülen misafirleri: Kışı geçirmek için geldiler", 21 January 2025; TRT Haber (AA), "Orta ve Doğu Karadeniz'de kış ortasında 163 bin 434 su kuşu sayıldı", 8 April 2020; Yeni Birlik, "Yürüyerek gidilen ada sular altında kaldı: Yedikır Barajı'nda hasret bitiyor", 8 June 2026. trthaber.com
  • Ornito.org, "Ak Pelikan (Pelecanus onocrotalus)".
  • Wikipedia (Turkish), "Yedikır Barajı" (DSİ technical data); Ministry of National Education, Out-of-School Learning Environments, "Yedikır Ziyaretçi Merkezi ve Kuş Gözlem Evi".

Online sources