During the last five years, the Naturetrek Poland in spring trip has been a great success, not only for the birds but also the large mammals which we have encountered. The first two years produced sightings of Wolf and Bison as well as the speciality birds of the Polish wetlands and forest.
However the trip in May 2007 surpassed all our expectations. Firstly this was the first year that we managed to see all the woodpeckers (10 species including Wryneck) – having seen all the woodpeckers of the Bialowieza forest including excellent views of Three-toed, we detoured, on the way back to the airport to a site on the outskirts of Warsaw, to see Syrian Woodpecker.
In 2005 and 2006 we failed to see both Citrine Wagtail and Aquatic Warbler because of the cold spring and poor weather but this year we had excellent views of a pair of Citrine Wagtails in good sunny weather at their breeding site on the south bank of the Siemianówka Reservoir.
Aquatic Warblers can be late migrants and with the lack of River Warbler and Common Rosefinch we feared that they would not have arrived. However a new boardwalk out into the flooded marsh in the southern basin of the Biebrza Marshes produced up to seven singing birds – although the wind and showers made them impossible to see. However this was a good omen for our visit to a stronghold at Mscichy Dam and studying the weather forecast we chose to visit here on a bright sunny day. As we approached the favoured habitat of flooded tussock grass we heard one singing and soon the whole group was able to watch it sat out in the sunshine for about five minutes. It even entertained us with a couple of song flights. There were in fact three birds visible here. Finally close to our last hotel at Goniadz there is a tower hide which reputedly also had a small population of this ‘tiger-striped’ warbler, but over the previous four trips, there was never any heard or seen. This year up to four were heard from the hide giving a total of
14 birds for the trip.
The 2007 was exceptionally special because of another incredible stroke of luck. We planned to go out to a known site for Pygmy Owl one evening and gathered together on a dirt track in the forest with a friend and local expert Arek. Whilst he was busy trying to locate the bird, one of the group noticed a mammal walking towards us on the track some 200 yards away. The creature turned sideways and marked its territory by ‘spraying’ the vegetation and then sat on the track and watched us. The cat-like gait, marking of territory and pointed, tufted ears could only mean one thing – a European Lynx – the first time one had been recorded on a Naturetrek trip. It must have sat there for 3-4 minutes which gave one of the group members, Jeremy Aldred ample time to fire off a few photos in failing light – the result of which was astounding. This was such a rare sighting that Arek had never had a group present when he had seen them in the past and he went round shaking everyone’s hand, congratulating us all on our incredible luck.
It appeared that the Lynx was waiting for us to leave so it could continue walking along the track but after a few minutes it decided to walk back into the forest. However a few minutes later it crossed back over the track checking us out again!
The icing on the cake was that the Pygmy Owl flew into the trees above us to see what all the fuss was about!
This trip will remain in the memories of the entire group and especially the leaders, as one of the best of the best of Poland, and thanks to Arek and Tomasz Jezierczuk (Tomek) for their hard work in achieving this.
Peter Dunn (Naturetrek tour leader)
To find out more about the Naturetrek Poland in Spring tour visit the tour page.