Alphabetical list

Sad but true, one cannot succeed in everything. Although Johan and I saw the short-eared owl three times, we failed to take one good picture of this bird. I’ve added a few documentary photos in the start-up gallery, rather as a memento of my first encounter with this species and for the reason that it’s the only predator in Iceland which I managed to see and photograph. I also saw some white-tailed eagles’ nests but the distance was so large that even with the use of converters I managed to take some very poor quality, documentary pictures.

One short encounter with a greater short-toed lark initializes a gallery of this species on my website. Coming back from an encounter with the blue rock thrush I saw a greater short-toed lark feeding on a field. As befits a bird on Malta it was very skittish and kept a substantial distance. It is a pity, as it is hardly possible to encounter this bird in Poland as it is a very rare guest in our country. It occurs in southern Europe, where it lives on open agricultural areas.
Last minute news-03/2023-Morocco

Well, I imagined my first encounter with the short-toed snake eagle quite differently. The distance was so great that the 600 millimeter lens with twice converter could not make it and the images were heavily cropped. What is more this steel structure of high-voltage net was not the best background for the presentation of this beautiful bird.  When I tried to reduce the distance of several meters the result was that the bird flew away.

Personally, distincting an Eurasian Treecreeper from a Short-toed Treecreeper is a challenge for me. That is why the description of both of them is of the same contents. According to literature an Eurasian Treecreeper most commonly appears in Europe and Asia, while a Short-toed Treecreeper, more thermophilic, inhabits Europe, specifically its Mid and Southern part. Fundamentally, they differ by the length of the rear claw and it would be best if they simply sat beside each other to make the task that much easier.

In October 2016 Hel Peninsula was an extraordinary place to watch not only very rare species of birds belonging to Polish fauna, but also those commonly encountered. Goldcrests, Eurasian wrens, finches were in so much number that one could observe them even from a distance of one meter at some moments. At the same time we had to watch our steps, so as not to harm goldcrests or Eurasian wrens. But not only because of bird-watching it was really worth it to go there.

It occurs in central and eastern parts of Asia. It winters in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Philippines. Therefore the recent observation of this bird in the Netherlands is sensational as the bird must have flown several thousand kilometers from its natural habitat in Asia west instead of flying south to its natural winter habitat in southern Asia. During this time we had plenty of Siberian rubythroats „at hand” in northern part of Thailand. We photographed them from a distance of several meters without camouflage.