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This gallery was created in pain and by the sweat of my brow. There are no lookouts where you can watch Ural owls, you just have to find them, work yourself out on foot. Sounds innocent, but for a person with no adequate physical efficiency covering almost 30 kilometers a day, mostly through dense vegetation with over a dozen kilograms of equipment, was no small feat. Well, my expedition partner Tomek had an attitude that motivated me to keep going and to withstand the hardship of day-long searching, especially as there were hordes of mosquitoes that followed us everywhere. My companion who knew the forest like the back of his hand, showed no sign of fatigue. He had physical fitness and experience, and a good piece of advice: three liters of water for such an expedition is not too much. At the end of the first day I was so worn out that at the sight of my car I was sincerely moved and my joy had no end, it was enough for one day. After such an exhausting starting day, the second one had to be less grueling. So much for the behind the scene introduction. And now, what is most important, the main character of our expedition – the Ural Owl. Watching this owl in its natural surroundings – in the forest, from quite a short distance, is an amazing experience worth suffering any inconveniences. The wild forest is a beautiful area, where you can find so many wonderful places to take photo shoots in the wild, the only trouble is if the bird would want to sit there. And there was the problem. Although Tomek knew the area very well, after all we watched, and we were actually looking for wild birds, which, like birds, could fly so were flying from one place to another. It must be said that to find these beautiful owls two factors had to coincide: the knowledge of the area (Tomek) and the help of other birds. Well, the emergence of the owl in the area had always been accompanied by alarming sounds of other smaller birds, the potential victims of the predator. Then it was only a matter of our cautiousness as we had to go quietly towards the noises. But how to do it when the litter is dry and full of twigs? So, many observations remained only in our memory, without taking pictures. It was also quite amazing that sometimes cyclists who organized a ride through the wilderness were passing by. Such a bird so close to a human environment! The owls kept a fairly large distance, but finally I managed to take some pictures to set up a gallery of the Ural owl on my website, and with photos of quite satisfactory quality. Tomek, in spite of exhaustion and hardship, thank you very much for showing me, I do not think I would exaggerate if I say – your “world of Ural owls”. I am aware of how much time one have to devote to getting to know the wild forest and then give a chance for such observation and taking photos to someone like me who do not have that much time and dreams of such pictures. Thank you and I hope there will be another chance to take photos together, not necessarily photos of Ural owls, although to have the gallery of Urals owl that I dream of, there is still much to do...
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