Belarus

I'm recently back from a nine-day Ornitholidays tour to Belarus, concentrating on two excellent habitats and their wildlife. After the flight to Minsk, we started in the Belovezkaja Forest, on the Polish border. This huge forest continues on the Poland side too, (where it is called Bialowieza). Many trees are 500+ years old; and the forest is hugely varied, much of it mixed broadleaf-evergreen. Much of it is damp bog-forest (as in the photo top left - click to enlarge). It is home to all the European woodpeckers, Hazel Grouse, Black Stork, many raptor species, and owls such as this nesting Great Grey Owl (top right). This owl is often photographed in the snow in Arctic Russia or Canada, but we saw it at the southern edge of its range - on the same latitude as Birmingham. We had a spring heat-wave for our visit, and watched it 'gular-fluttering:' losing heat by panting. Here these magnificent owls eat squirrels and birds (including other owls). 
 

The other main habitat we explored was marshes and flooded meadows, along the Pripyat River (left). The Pripyat is a tributary of the Dnieper, which flows south through Ukraine into the Black Sea. The marshes are a breeding ground for Terek Sandpiper, Great Snipe and masses of Black-tailed Godwit, Lapwing, Common Snipe and Common Redshank. Other waders in superb breeding plumage, such as Ruff and Spotted Redshank, call in here for a few weeks in spring on their migration to the Arctic. Near Turov, we watched a young European Beaver (above right) practising building a lodge, and observed the biologists at a ringing station as they ringed and released a number of waders. They gave me a Common Redshank to release (below left).

One of the major highlights of the trip was watching an impressive male European Bison (right) as it came out of a forest at dusk to graze in a meadow. In some villages horses and carts outnumbered tractors, and the gardens of every wooden house had cherry trees in full blossom. But is it paradise? We also heard of illegal hunting and logging in national parks, and read of a terrible lack of human rights or democracy in the government. And after the heat-wave, the mosquitoes were starting to bite....

Preparing for Belarus

On 28 April I start co-leading an Ornitholidays group to Belarus - a first for me. (Luckily my co-leader knows the place). I'll bring the group out from London to Minsk, and we'll spend 9 days exploring the forests and marshes of this little-known country. In May 2010, our group to Poland visited the huge, primeval forest of Bialowieza where herds of European Bison roam. This great forest is 45% in Eastern Poland and 55% in Western Belarus: now we'll get to see the other half. The photo is one I took of the Polish half of the forest: a watery wilderness that is home to Beavers, Black Storks, Hazel Grouse, many raptor, woodpecker and flycatcher species, and much else. 

During the First World War, all the forest's Bison were shot by German troops, and vast quantities of wood were exported for the German war effort. Bison were re-introduced from captivity, but their gene pool is small: they are all descended from 12 animals. They are easiest to see in winter when they emerge into meadows to feed on hay provided to supplement their diet. Dividing the forest is a two-metre border fence which is impassable to Bison, though other animals can swim underneath in places. In all, it covers an area that equates to a square 25 miles by 25 miles: about the size of Greater London inside the M25.

We also expect to see reminders of an age now gone from Western Europe: horse-drawn hay-carts and more scythes than strimmers. White Storks, back from winter in Africa, nest in the villages; and the mammal list also has Elk, Red Deer, Wild Boar and Muskrat. I'll report on our trip soon after my return on 9 May!

Our local OSPREYS are back from Senegal!

The Osprey makes one of the most positive British conservation stories. Hunted to extinction in Britain in Victorian times, it remained absent as a breeding species in Britain until 1954. In that year, a pair of these charismatic fishing hawks - probably from Scandinavia - nested in the Spey Valley. The RSPB encouraged them by buying up a large estate at Loch Garten in prime Osprey-habitat, and from 1959 they have nested annually on the reserve. Numbers built up slowly, and new sites in the Scottish Highlands were gradually colonized. The RSPB kept very quiet about these other Osprey sites, and used the 'honeypot' approach: directing all enquiries and visitors to their well-guarded Garten site. Even there problems occurred: one year an attempt was made to saw down the nesting tree, and the staff have to keep a 24-hour watch on the nest to prevent egg-theft. By 1991, Scotland had 71 nesting pairs, and now Britain has over 250 pairs. Recently England and Wales have had their first nests forwell over a century.

Ospreys returned to the Dyfi Valley - next to the RSPB reserve of Ynys Hir - for the first time last year, raising three young. Archives reveal that the same area was used by nesting Ospreys in the 17th century. In September, British Ospreys migrate to West Africa. Nora, the female, has been back for a few days, rearranging the sticks in the nest and anxiously looking south...., but the great news came in this afternoon that her partner Monty is back too! They've already been spotted mating by the MWT (Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust)'s superb new webcam. The above image is a still from the webcam. Now we look forward to another successful breeding season, fingers crossed!

A White Curlew

This very grainy, distant digi-scoped image shows a leucistic Curlew - which Clare and I found yesterday at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve on the Severn, Dolydd Hafren. Leucism is a genetic mutation that prevents melanin from being deposited normally on feathers, but this one was feeding and flying normally with the flock, quite happy with its own identity! If there had been a Peregrine about, I can guess which one it might have targeted.  

More on Bhutan

By popular request, I'm writing a little more about Bhutan. So many things about this unique kingdom impressed us. For example, the forest cover statistic. (Click on the picture on the right to see the endless forests behind the farmhouse). Over 60% of Bhutan's original forest cover still survives, and is almost all linked by a web of wildlife corridors. In a mountainous country like Bhutan, most species of birds and mammals migrate up and down the mountains according to season. In most countries, protected areas are small islands in a sea of cultivation; but in Bhutan it's still the other way round. The strong Buddhist ethic sits well with nature conservation too. 

But development is on the way here too. To accommodate the increasing road traffic, huge widening programmes are on the way, resulting in the blasting away of whole hillsides. The dark car at the top centre of the photo (left) shows the scale of this temporary devastation. Not ideal for plants or any other wildlife!

10 Days in Bhutan

I am just back from a visit to Bhutan, with an Ornitholidays group. We spent some time admiring the architecture of the dzongs (such As Punakha Dzong, right). A dzong is a fortified monastery that also serves as local government offices. 

Each dzong is full of sacred Buddhist artworks, such as these Black-necked Cranes (right).  

The cranes winter in small numbers in one Bhutan valley, where we watched about 160 as they fed on tubers and filled the air with loud trumpeting calls. Here are three of my group aiming for full-frame photos (right).  

Other easily photographable birds included the Oriental Turtle Dove (left) - as common as a Wood Pigeon at home - and a Spotted Laughingthrush (below left), which was so engrossed in feeding on the verge of a quiet mountain road that it did not notice the approaching photographers.

The roar of a Peregrine stooping....

No photo to accompany this tale, it all happened so fast! In the garden just now, I heard a loud roar like a corrugated iron sheet falling off a roof. Looking up, I saw a Peregrine flying away with prey. Putting a scope on the ash tree it landed in, I saw that we will now have one less Great Spotted Woodpecker at our feeders! 

I'll put up something about Bhutan soon!