Potters Bar & Barnet Local RSPB Group
Poland - Birds and Music
31st March to 13th April
by Sally Bennett - photos by Bruce Bennett
By a strange coincidence, Bruce and I had already booked on a trip to Poland when we learned that Fran was planning a group visit to the same destination. Ours was one of the “birds and music” trips that we love so much, this time based around the Easter Beethoven Festival in Warsaw.
The Music. We arrived in Warsaw a few days before Easter as the festival was getting under way, and had an intensive few days of concerts - three a day on a couple of occasions. We had a feast of Beethoven Symphonies, Concertos, Quartets and Sonatas, a stunning performance of Verdi’s Otello and recitals of Lieder and duets for piano and cello, interspersed with pieces by Szymanowski, Richard Strauss, Frank Martin and Schoenberg. Some were at the State Concert Hall, others in the Polish National Opera House, the Royal Castle, and one in a beautiful church.
On leaving Warsaw we called at Chopin’s birthplace, which was sadly closed though it did have lovely grounds with good birds (black woodpecker, firecrest and cranes).
Our next concert was at “Lutoslawski’s Manor” where a small chamber group played exclusively for our party. Finally in the lovely old city of Krakow we enjoyed a superb Chopin recital in the beautiful salon of an old merchant’s house, chamber music in the baroque
splendour of St. Bernard’s Church and, to end our tour, a splendid dinner at the famous Klezmer Hois to the accompaniment of a local group playing and singing the traditional Jewish music.
The Birds. The birding element of our trip started straight off with early morning visits to some of the large and quite rural parks on the outskirts of Warsaw where we had close views of hawfinch, fieldfare, Mandarin, great, middle, lesser spotted and Syrian woodpeckers, and lots of red squirrels. We also visited areas of fishponds which were well populated with numerous waterfowl, specials including white-tailed eagle, Bewick’s swan, white stork, black-necked grebe, garganey and goldeneye, night herons, ruffs, Temmincks stint, wood and green sandpiper, and close penduline tits.
On leaving Warsaw we headed for the Biebrza marshes where we were welcomed by thousands of white-fronted geese plus bean geese, whooper swans, lesser and greater spotted eagles and red-necked grebes.
Then we travelled on to the Bialowieza Forest which was full of bramblings and redwings, brief glimpses of three-toed and white-backed woodpeckers and hazel hen, great views of grey-headed woodpecker, all three “spotted” woodpeckers and a pair of blacks.
From Krakow we enjoyed an excursion to the edge of Podczerwome peat-bog near the Slovakian border and the Carpathians where we had 21 black grouse, black storks, cranes, great grey shrike and wonderful views of crested tits.
In all the group recorded 129 species. No mossies - too cold!
From Krakow, too, we had the sombre experience of a trip to Auschwitz, a dreadful reminder of Poland’s distressing and terrible past. Entry to the well-maintained camps is free and there were huge numbers of visitors across a wide range of nationalities and age groups.
The Flowers. Not an advertised feature of our trip but the wild flowers were really wonderful. The many wooded areas were carpeted with anemone nemorosa, ranunculus, stunning spreads of blue hepatica and corydalis to name just a few; and then when we were in the Carpathian foothills there were meadows carpeted with wild mauve crocus, some just breaking through the retreating snow.
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