Danube-Auen National Park Danube-Auen National Park Donau-Auen National Park () covers 93 square kilometres in Vienna and Lower Austria and is one of the largest remaining floodplains of the Danube in Middle Europe. The German word Aue (variant Au) means "river island, wetland, floodplain, riparian woodland", i.e. a cultivated landscape in a riparian zone. The words Aue and Au occur in a large number of German place names—including Donau, the German word for the Danube River—and refer to forests, meadows, and wetlands in river and stream lowlands and floodplains. The Danube-Auen National Park protects a large area of lowland forests, meadows, wetlands, and
Birds of the Danube Delta and mixed form of colonial nesting. Such an observation and interpretation of the colonial nesting origin in the Danube Delta may constitute an argument for properly explaining the colonial nesting phenomenon in different regions or the globe. Birds of the Danube Delta Following an almost two-decade (1951–1970) research of the Danube Delta territory, 274 bird species were identified of which 176 were brooding (sedentary and migratory) and 98 non-brooding ones (winter, passage, erratic, and accidental birds). The species of brooding birds occurring in the Danube Delta were classified into 12 main biotopes, the classification criterion being represented by the nesting