NSG Königsdorfer Forst

NSG Königsdorfer Forst is a nature reserve in Pulheim, covering more than 330 hectares on the eastern edge of the Ville plateau. Its continuous deciduous woodland combines beech, oak, hornbeam and alder forests with wetlands, small ponds and a dense network of paths. Reclaimed spoil heaps and a railway line border the forest to the southwest and northwest, while nurseries and farmland extend to the south and east.

Old trees, deadwood, shrubs and herb layers create habitat for insects, amphibians, bats and protected birds. Middle spotted woodpeckers, black woodpeckers, grey-headed woodpeckers, honey buzzards and nightingales are among the species supported here. Wood anemones, wild garlic, lungwort and lily-of-the-valley grow beneath stands that preserve fragments of forest once widespread across the Lower Rhine Bay. Protection has focused on these habitats since the late 1980s and early 2000s.

The Klosterteiche add valuable wetland areas, with alder and moor birch surrounding ponds that have partly become marshy. A small maar, or volcanic crater lake, forms another distinctive detail, with shallow water covered by duckweed and floating mosses.