Poland - 1

So this was my annual trip to Poland - a necessary venture to visit my partners parents and to do the right thing by escaping into the countryside after approximately two hours.  I say annual - it should be really but last year it didn't happen which is a real shame.  Because - this is a really great place to watch wildlife - the people are really very congenial, the food is actually extremely gratifying if you find the right places, and the beer flows like water at the fraction of the price of the UK, and is twice as refreshing.

And then there's the wildlife.  The habitat is vast in comparison to what we have here, agriculture untouched my artificial farming practices that have seen the demise of many of our farmland birds, and areas of marshland that make the Cambridgeshire fens look like a suburban garden.

We took a walk along the Augustow Canal on the first evening from the Kaktusik Hotel where Great Reed Warbler were cronking from a modest reedbed.  A Tree Sparrow briefly flew out and perched on a naked branch and Fieldfare were a common sight.

Along the river, the skies were clear and the warm evening made for a pleasant walk awkwardly peering into back gardens where a pair of Red-backed Shrike posed beautifully in the evening sunshine.

This was all after a thunder storm had passed through as we arrived, but as the sun began to shine, the place came to life.  A Spotted Flycatcher was seen, again from a back garden and bizarrely, a Common Redstart sang from an aerial of a residential property, not what I was expecting.

A female Goldeneye flew down river (canal) and there were distant yaffles from Black Woodpecker.