TomKal foto

It wasn’t another ,,bird trip” but a short family holidays, using the attractive first offers of travel agencies after the ending of pandemic (I hope). It’ll be hard to get back to normal because some risk related to the coronavirus still exists. Madeira own of thousands of accommodation places for tourists. The day we left Madeira, there were six flights on the information board. Three abroad Portugal - two to Poland and one to France. Here we are probably pioneers in faith and hope that everything is back to normal. To visit Madeira you have to have a negative Cov-19 test result. Here, appreciation expressed for the organization of the tests carried out at the Madeira airport for the entire group of almost 200. Testing took several dozen minutes, was free, and everyone waiting for the test received a bottle of water. After the test, hotel isolation is obligatory, expecting the test result. It took 6-9 hours and the results were sent at night. It wasn’t organizationally awkward. On the way back in the airport in Warsaw, in order to avoid quarantine, you have to make the test and wait up to 15 minutes for its result. And here wasn’t so efficient organizationally. Out of the entire 200 passenger plane, about 30 people decided to take this test. Testing and reporting the results took about 3 hours and cost 200 PLN. But in the end, we managed to see Madeira despite the coronavirus difficulties, and I can assure you that it is worth it. As I wrote at the beginning, it was not a bird trip, but how can you not try to photograph  endemics of Madeira? Little Madeira has 3. The first one is connected with the sea and without swimming around Madeira there is no chance to photograph it. We are talking about the Madeira petrel. Its population is estimated at less than 200 specimens. It nests only in Madeira and you have to be lucky at sea to see it. The second endemic is the Trocaz Pigeon. Here I was lucky and managed to see him. Why you need to be lucky to see it, I explain in the text included in the information in the Trocaz Pigeon gallery. The third endemic is the Madeira firecrest and it wasn’t a problem to photograph it, and for two short meetings a flamboyant gallery was created and we managed to record the Madeira firecrest's voice. But before a little more about the Madeira firecrest, a little more about Madeira and taking photos there. Acoustically, birds who dominated Madeira are Eurasian blackcap, then Common blackbird and Grey Wagtail. The last I even saw on cities foothwalks. The birds are quiet skittish, except for Common chaffinch in several places on the island. Tourists feed them there by their hands. You have to "going" to do the other species. There are many companies on the island focused on tourism, including birdly. People who want to photograph birds I encouraged to contact me, because some of the companies have a very commercial approach to their business and are not very flexible. Fortunately, there is a choice among the possibilities of supporting  tourist during a short stay on the island, and it is greater than it seems while sitting in front of the computer monitory in Poland. Madeira surprised me very positively. In a small space, because Madeira covers 741 square kilometers, a modern road infrastructure has been built. Only thanks to it you can visit the rainforests, where is foggy, rainy and a dozen or so degrees of heat, and after a few dozen minutes by car, you will be on the beach and you will sunbathe in over 20 degrees. Madeira has two sandy, small beaches with sand brought from Africa. Over a hundred tunnels and many viaducts have been built in Madeira, which allow for efficient movement around the island. Additionally, there is efficient public transport. It is very important, because there are many attractions in Madeira and it is a waste of time to sit in the car. Unfortunately, there are traffic jams in the capital. The variety in Madeira is huge. From the landscape to the plant one. I created the Madera flora gallery, although I don't know which species are endemic and which are brought to Madeira. Apparently, most of the plants currently found in Madeira are artificially brought there, and the gallery itself is only the beginning of what you can see there. The biggest mistake of this manipulation with nature turned out to be the introduction of Australian eucalyptus, which now cannot be removed. They are not afraid of fire or chainsaws. It is similar with the diversity of the landscape. From foggy rainforests high in the mountains to dry spaces covered with nothing but dry grass. Rocky coast, cliffs, central plateau and all this on several hundred kilometers of area, where about a quarter of a million people live.
Coming back to the Madeira firecrest. It is abundant in Madeira, but in the higher parts of the mountains. It occurres several hundred meters high to the height of the trees in Madeira. It lives in coniferous forests, rainforests, but also wooded heathers. Photographing in the rainforest was especially difficult because of the fog and lack of light. Quite specific photos from this session were created. I have an absolute weakness for Firecrests and Goldcrests. Such beautiful, dynamic toddlers are always worth observing. That's why, it was important for me to photograph the Madeira firecrest and to have its own gallery with a soundtrack.

Regular visitors to my website can move through it, but for new visitors the information that the list of texts below is also a collection of links to the gallery. If there is a letter T in brackets after the gallery name, it means that the gallery has been attached with a text with information about photographing, if there is a letter G, the gallery has a soundtrack of a given species. I invite you.