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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. Although Hel Peninsula is a small area, finding the individual specimens of this very rare species, weighing several grams of birds, is a real challenge even for a group of observers. There was an amazing atmosphere on this day on Hel. Dozens of nature lovers, ornithologists, photographers joined forces in search of birds. The situation was very dynamic: the group of people that observed Siberian accentor suddenly disappeared after they had received information that lapland longspur had appeared somewhere here. While taking photos of lapland longspur suddenly we got information about Siberian stonechat, someone ran with a device to record bird’s voices - apparently its sound could be heard... The hot atmosphere, smiles and expression of pleasure on the faces of bird lovers because of "ticking off" new rare species. We all talk to each other exchanging information about new "findings". Just for such an amazing atmosphere it was worth coming here, because such a healthy and constructive cooperation of birdwatchers does not happen very often, which is a pity, as what all these people have in common is, regardless of age, profession, views, admiration for birds, the desire to observe or photograph them.
From among these rare birds that could be observed on Hel, with my limited resources of time, I managed to photograph two species: Siberian accentor and lapland longspur. A lapland longspur occurs in our country from time to time, but a Siberian accentor was found only for the third time. With the lapland longspur there was no problem to photograph it, but to take the Siberian accentor one needed to have a little patience and luck, as it often happens with nature photography. The bird was coming regularly feeding in the company of reed buntings, finches, robins, wrens, bramblings and others. Unfortunately, they were quite far from us and often we could not do without a converter. It took many hours but I was able to take such a number of photos that now I have plenty to choose from to create a gallery of this species on my website. For a change the lapland longspur’s gallery was founded in tens of minutes.
This description is common for the "initial" galleries of both species. I suppose It will be difficult to make changes in these galleries...
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