Month: September 2017

We made one last try this morning to see elk, leaving the lodge at 5:45 a.m. Andrej drove to the nearby viewing platform and we all scanned the marsh to see if any of the animals decided to give us a glimpse. And we were rewarded!  Not just one elk, but two, at different times. They were both pretty far away, probably more than a half-mile, but easily spottable in our binoculars and the spotting scope. Here are my photos from the morning. The elk is the small brown dot in the upper third, center of the photo.

We came back to have breakfast, which was similar to our previous ones here, except some substantial Polish pancakes appeared instead of eggs. Then we packed up and loaded the van for Warsaw, leaving about 9 a.m.

After a 4-hour drive on the expressway, with one rest stop along the way, we arrived near Old Town Warsaw. Andrej parked the van and we walked into Old Town for lunch. He had ordered a meal for all of us. It started out with a specialty Polish fermented rye soup that had bits of ham and hard boiled egg in it. The main dish was trout, along with the usual slaws as sides. It was all very good. After lunch, he gave us a walking tour of the Old Town area, similar to the one I received two weeks ago.

Finally, we were each dropped off at our hotels or the airport. I’m back at the Hampton Inn at the airport. Since I have to leave at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning to prepare for my 6:00 flight to Amsterdam (then direct to Seattle), it will be an early turn-in tonight. Thus, the end of my stay in Poland. But it’s been a fun and rewarding vacation in Poland!

Andrej brought us out on another early morning elk hunt this morning, with everyone piling into the van at 6 a.m. It was foggy and still outside, plus relatively warm – maybe 60 degrees. But we couldn’t find any elk at the stops in the marsh we made.

We came back for breakfast, which was the usual breads, meats, and cheeses along with fried eggs. Then we we left again. This time, we drove up north to the strict marsh reserve, in which access is restricted to only those with credentialed guides like Andrej. The strict reserve is an area with marsh plus vegetated sand dunes, so it was different terrain. We walked along a trail up to a couple of viewing platforms. We saw a Black Woodpecker and a Crested Tit, which were both new to me, but no elk at all. We were also able to view animal tracked in the moist sand and saw that roe deer, racoon dogs, foxes, wild boars, and badgers had been recent visitors along the trail. At one of the platforms, we ate our packed lunch. Then we hiked back to the car.

We ended up stopping at several viewing spots where Andrej had seen elk in previous visits, but no luck. As we drove through one village, we shared the narrow road with dairy cows being herded by farmers to get milked, which was amusing. We returned to the lodge about 6:45 p.m. It had been a long day.

Dinner was eggplant parmesan, the usual cabbage and beet slaw selections, and dessert was an unusual jello cake.

Tonight we packed to prepare to return to Warsaw tomorrow. And tomorrow morning we’ll try one last time before breakfast to find elk.

(I’m not going to be able to post photos today because of limited bandwidth issues. I’ll try add them later.)

Last night, we had duck in cherry sauce for dinner. It was really good. And the dessert was a large slice of warm apple cake with ice cream on the side, drizzled with chocolate sauce. Decadent. And a little ironic for birdwatchers to be eating duck, right?

After dinner, we left at 8 p.m. to drive to a village on the Narew (pronounced Narev) River to take a boat ride to look for beaver. It was a large rowboat-shaped boat with 4 bench seats that could hold 10-12 people. We had two guides/boat drivers with searchlights. As we putted along in the river, propelled with a small outboard motor, they used the searchlights to illuminate the reed-covered river edges, looking for beavers. And during the 90 minute ride, we probably saw about 15 of the large creatures, swimming along the river edge or eating willow twigs. The night was totally black and fairly quiet, except for occasional distant dogs barking and the outboard noise. It was about 50 degrees and there was no wind, so it wasn’t too cold, but we had put plenty of layers on in preparation.  We returned to the lodge to go to sleep about 10:30 p.m.

This morning, we didn’t have to get up for a pre-breakfast walk. (Yay!) Breakfast was at 8:00 and was a buffet of breads, cold meat slices, tomatoes, and scrambled eggs.

We left at 8:45 to look for elk and birds. It was a rainy, gray morning. We drove around to different spots in the southern part of Biebrza Marsh, stopping at viewing platforms. But not much was visible – just a few birds.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant where Andrej ordered pierogis for us. There were two kinds – ones with ground pork inside and ones with a cheese and potato mixture. Both were good. Plus they came with cole slaw, beet slaw, and shredded white radish. It was a very filling lunch.

After lunch, we made a couple more stops at viewing platforms, including one where we had to walk through a very wet marshy field that threatened to overtop our boots (our “wellies” per the British). At that last platform, we saw 4 Roe Deer, but not much else. We spent about 90 minutes at that platform, hoping that elk would appear.

At one of the viewing platforms, in front of a farmhouse, there was a leaning outhouse with just a hole in a wooden platform inside:

And here’s a peat bog we visited:

Returning after the day’s trip, we ate another hearty meal of stewed pork in gravy (Polish goulash), potato “cake” slices, and more beet and cabbage slaws.  Dessert was a very fancy layered cake with chocolate, coconut, and poppyseed layers, plus almond slices and cherry syrup on top. I couldn’t finish the whole thing. And I know I’m going to put on pounds from the desserts here!

Tomorrow brings another pre-breakfast search for elk, so I need to go to bed now.

We left Bialowieza this morning at 9 a.m. after breakfast. There wasn’t a pre-breakfast walk, so we could sleep in a bit. The weather was solidly overcast but not raining. We drove north for about 90 minutes before reaching the city of Bialystok, the largest city in the region. We drove to some fish ponds on the edge of the city to birdwatch. At the ponds, we mostly saw ducks and various raptors doing some hunting, including a Goshawk that nearly caught a duck and a White-tailed Eagle that successfully caught a fish.

We then drove into the Biebrza National Park to a viewing platform, looking for elk and birds. Here’s the view over a part of the marsh.

Our lodging for the next few days, called Dwor Dobarz, is inside the park. The rooms here are larger and nicer than in our previous pension. 

This morning it was clear and sunny. It was a welcome change from the storm of yesterday. We met at 6 a.m. to look for bison again before breakfast. And we found two bulls not far out of town.

We returned to have breakfast, which was the usual breads, cheese, meats, plus crepes. We left soon after breakfast for a drive to a lake, Siemianowa, surrounded by levees that was very close to the Belarus border. From a viewing platform on one side of the lake, we saw many birds. Two of them were eagles, including the White-tailed Eagle, which is featured in the Polish coat of arms. It looks somewhat similar to the Bald Eagle except without a white head. We walked along the levee in the sunshine to see more birds and some mushrooms. Then we returned to a picnic table near the viewing platform to eat our lunches packed by the pension’s staff.

After lunch, we drove around the lake to the side that’s right near the border. It’s actively patrolled by the Polish border guard because it’s the line between the EU and the rest of Eastern Europe. Poland isn’t letting in any refugees that the rest of Europe is handling. A patrol car stopped near our van and we all had to show passports. They asked the Australian women and then me, “Where is your visa?” I said I didn’t have one. They thumbed through the pages to find the entrance stamp and were satisfied. Later, Vanessa, one of the British people on our group said, “I thought we were going to lose you.” In the relief of the moment, it was rather funny.

We drove nearby to some farmed fish ponds to look for additional birds and saw a red fox there. Then we returned to the pension for a break before leaving again to find the elusive Pygmy-owl.  Andrej had arranged to meet another guide who was going to a place where one had been seen recently. The second guide was whistling in imitation of the owl’s call on a forest road when we arrived.  Soon an owl called back in response and we were able to see it sitting high up in a tree. It’s the size of a starling and catches other small birds to eat. We got a great view through the spotting scope. After seeing that, hearing the rutting bellows of red deer through the woods, and seeing a pretty sunset, we returned to the pension for dinner and the end of the day.