North Central Greece

This area includes most of the huge plain of Thessaly on the southern end, where cotton, grains and tobacco are cultivated.

To the east of the plain is the Pilio Peninsula, a unique area with villages of stone houses in steep mountain forests, where there are many fruit and nut trees from which come a large percentage of Greece's apples, cherries, and nuts.

Predictably, all of the human activities that plague coastal areas near large urban centers (draining for construction and agriculture, dumping, hunting, etc.) has wiped out a lot of these areas and the rich wildlife that they supported, though a many remain such as Lake Kastoria.

Lake Doirani

This is one of the many lakes in Macedonian, found on the border northwest of Thessaloniki off of the road north of Kilkis to the village of Doirani.

From there a road flanks most of the lake's east shore. The lake is shared with FYROM, with only one third of it in Greece.

It is most interesting for its overwintering water birds, though sometimes the lake freezes, and weather to the north plays a role on which birds come.

Both Dalmatian and white pelicans (more of the former), two kinds of grebes, mallard, coot, and pygmy cormorant are among the birds usually found here at that time, along with the rare white headed duck on occasion.

Though a good breeding site for many species.