More About Poland

A good tour guide asks the client what interests they have and then tries to accommodate the request as best as possible. Tomasz figured out that I was interested in seeing birds that inhabit marshes and lakes, so he adjusted our schedule to take me out to the lake. That decision was a good one. We saw 3 different tern species at the lake - Black Tern which we have in the US, Whiskered Tern which has only been reported 3 times in the US (I saw the last one. You can read about it here), and White-winged Tern which I have never seen before. The all put on a show - especially the Whiskered Terns. Here is one carrying a fish to his potential mate.

Whiskered Tern

 The White-winged terns stayed further away from the shoreline. This is the best that I could do.

White-winged Tern

The other special birds at the lake were the eagles. Europe has several eagle species. We saw 3 of them at the lake. There were at least 5 White-tailed Eagles hanging around. This young bird soared over our heads. They are a close cousin to our Bald Eagle.

White-tailed Eagle

Here is an unlikely pair - mixed - Spotted Eagle and Lesser Spotted Eagle soaring together. It is difficult to tell them apart but trust me, there are 2 different species here.

Lesser Spotted and Spotted Eagles

Here is a closer look at Lesser Spotted Eagle. This one is molting wing feathers.

Lesser Spotted Eagle

Eagles are great but the raptor that made my day was the Hobby. This is a little falcon similar to our Kestral. The cool thing about this falcon is that it wasn't alone. There were at least 6 of them hunting dragon flies along the lake shore at once. Pretty cool. Capturing a photo of one proved difficult. This is the best that I could manage.

Hobby

We needed to make our way past these guys to get out to the lake shore. The part of eastern Poland is very pastoral.

MOO

This fox was sloshing through the marshy edge of the lake hoping for some lunch. He/she was totally unaware of us since we were down wind.

Fox

 Other big birds around the lake included this Common Crane - similar to our Sandhill Crane that inhabit places like Florida (Villages).

Common Crane

And the Whooper Swan which is a pretty big swan. There were a pair of them on the lake. I have seen one of these in NJ on a lake in an RV campground. The owner of the campground actually had it flown in from Russia to keep on the lake.

Whooper Swan

When it comes to human reproduction, I'm no expert but I always thought it was strange that a stork would bring the baby considering that we have very few storks in the US and very many people. How does that work? Santa Claus - I totally get that. He has reindeer and a sled and elves but the stork seems to work alone.  My visit to Poland opened my eyes. There are storks everywhere. They nest on telephone poles and rooftops and just about anywhere you can imagine. I can totally see where the Europeans get so many babies. (Still having trouble with the US baby thing).

White Stork

Here is a close up. You can see how that giant bill can carry a full grown baby.

White Stork

All in all, the one day birding trip was a huge success. Tomasz wanted to keep going and possibly find an owl but I gave up at 6 PM so that I could drive 3 hours back to Warsaw, pack and get ready to get to the airport by 6 AM. I needed to get back home. I left Europe with 110 species in total and 35 new species. Pretty damned good for about 1 day of free time.

Unpredictable

That is what the weather is down in Florida. The weatherman said rain for Sunday but it didn't. Clearing on Monday but (you guessed it) it rained. Guess when the rain started? Hint - not when I was indoors. It started to rain when I was halfway across the Orlando Wetland Park (not a Disney thing, a nature thing) looking for a Vermilion Flycatcher. I don't know what made me bring a plastic Wawa bag with me. Oh, you read that right - a Wawa bag. Uh huh, Wawa has infiltrated Florida. Hallelujah!

Anyway, back to the story.  I was about a half mile out into the marsh when the sky opened up and it started to pour rain. I tried to hide under an observation platform but that didn't work. I tried to use a palm frond as an umbrella without success. I ran back to the car but was soaked through to the bone. The camera was snug in the Wawa bag but I looked and felt like a drowned rat. So, what's a grown woman to do?  I ran to the bathroom, stripped down to my skivvies and used the hand dryer to dry out my clothes of course.

The rain finally stopped. Not many photo opps but I had to shoot this bug. Look at the size of it. I put that quarter on the ground next to it for size comparison.

Mutant Grasshopper

A few of the larger birds. This White Ibis strolled across the path in front of me.

White Ibis

This Wood Stork showed off his flesh colored foot in the shallow water.

Wood Stork

These Coots were very skittish. They made a tight group when I got close.

Coots

 This Common Gallinule showed off his white  tail feathers.

Common Gallinule

I did get to see the Vermilion Flycatcher which was brilliant red. Unfortunately, the bird was very far out in the marsh making a photo impossible. I couldn't resist taking a shot of this young gator.

Lying in wait

Looks like he is waiting for someone to make a mistake. I hope for better weather over the next few days.

Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready for My Close-up

Just got back from a week in Florida. After leaving The Villages, I dropped Di at Tampa airport and scooted on down to Punta Gorda to meet up with the rest of the nerds. We took the boat down the Alligator River (it's really called that) into Charlotte Harbor and across to Cayo Costa State Park which is an island just north of Captiva. Lot's of fun and lot's of great birds along the way including Brown Booby and several Common Loons! Boobies! It's always great to see Boobies. . .

We also had Hooded Mergansers on the canal right at the house. I got good photos of this hen while she snoozed on a palm tree log. Poor thing has a droopy wing but she was getting along just fine fishing etc. We spoke to the volunteer at the Peace River Wildlife Rehabilitation Center about it. He said that they wouldn't be able to catch her if she was moving around that well. That's good news. You can see her droopy wing in this photo:


Here are another couple of Hooded Mergansers on the canal:

The variety of birds was low but the birds that we saw were very approachable. Take these birds for instance. Gorgeous! This Snow Egret was only a few feet away looking for a handout:


And this beauty (well, his mother thinks so anyway). A Black Vulture that was released from the rehabilitation center but still hangs around:

This Wood Stork takes the beauty crown though. Don't you agree?


More later.