Østerby is a quiet hamlet set deep in the marshlands of South Jutland, where the flat polder stretches toward the Wadden Sea and the German border lies just to the south. Here the horizon runs unbroken, drained fields laced with dikes and ditches, sheep grazing on grassy embankments beneath vast, ever-shifting skies. The village sits within the Wadden Sea National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage tidal landscape famous for its birdlife — in spring and autumn great murmurations of starlings, the celebrated "Sort Sol" (Black Sun), swirl over the surrounding meadows at dusk. Nearby lie the old town of Højer with its historic windmill and the market town of Tønder, gateway to the region's Frisian heritage. Cyclists and birdwatchers are drawn to the tranquil back roads, the wide sea meadows and the raw, elemental beauty of one of Denmark's most weather-carved corners.