TomKal foto

It is a very unique species of a bird for me, not only because it is the heaviest flying bird on earth (males weight up to 18 kilograms with a wingspan of around 2.4 meters), but because since my childhood years it drew my attention, bigger or smaller. It started when I was a little boy standing in front of a taxidermied Great Bustard, I froze stunned with his appearance. Majestic, huge bird, not much smaller than myself that day, he moved my imagination and made his mark in my memory. Every once in a while I was able to hear or find some scraps of information about it, unfortunately it was nowhere to be seen live. The dream of getting to see living Great Bustards grew with time until 2013, when I drove for photography workshops in Spain, where half of their worldwide population occurs. There I could observe and photograph them in their natural habitat. My grandfather, in the 50's, showed those beautiful birds to my father on the fields near Kościan, our home town in Greater Poland. Unluckily, he could neither show me, nor can I show it to my son, as they had extinct in Poland by the end of the last century. Great Bustards require huge spaces, meadows, rural terrains with short plants. They are very skittish and timid. Large, trees free areas and good sight allow them to avoid being surprised and give them time to break in the air and avoid the aggressor. Observing Great Bustards gives unforgettable experience, but their flight, especially near the watching booth, can not be compared to anything, though it is rare. Great Bustards, undisturbed, travel through endless meadows, observing the area once in a while. They fly reluctantly, and if so, its much lighter females do it. During the mating season, which I had an opportunity to observe, males turn almost like Transformers, into completely different creatures. They often stand alone, afar from mating groups, presenting their unique mating attitude, swaggering and ruffling their feathers. And the sight of this transformation and their mating dance is a beautiful spectacle, incomparable to any other creatures' in our country. Sounds that it makes, especially standing in front of other male, would not be associated with Great Bustard by any of us. I have recorded them and encourage you to listen to them. Mating debates of the males can last for hours. Their go to present all of their charms is the biggest at dusk and at dawn. My observations, please do not treat them as a scientific or absolute, are a coverage from persistent days of staying in the watching spot. Why persistent? As you need an incredible perseverance and determination to wake up at 5 a.m. and stay in the booth from 6 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. Watching spots for Great Bustards, at least where I had the pleasure to photograph them, are situated every couple of hunderds of meters from each other. You need a bit more luck while staying in one of the booths to photograph the wandering bustards from such big distances. Luckily, their numbers, knowledge of their behavior and the terrain by the organizer of the workshops (greetings Manuel) during the three days gave everyone an opportunity to photograph them. How many and how good they are is a completely different matter. For those who think that the only effort from the photographer is getting through those dozen hours I can add that the booth is a stone cubic of a 1.5 meters. So, you can not straighten up, take a comfortable nap or leave the spot before dawn. Those spartan conditions mixed with necessity of sharing with others, that would like to make the booth (especially stone one) their home give unforgettable experiences. Lizards and geckos would sneak into the booth every once in a while looking for a shade to cover themsleves from the burning sun. As long as they were the size of our Sand Lizard it was quite ok. Feelings change when the booth is visited by 0.5 meter lizard of which I could not be sure if it was dangerous or not. I assure you, that there was nowhere to hide or seek help from and to keep calm and quiet is an obligation for all the of workshops' participants. Fortunately, it was as scared as we were and left very quickly. Every booth has got a view from all four sides of the world as you never know where the birds may appear. You should discreetly uncover the masking blind and in case they appear move your photo gear and take the pictures. Moving of the tripod in such a small space is not an easy task. So the pictures that you see required much dedication and significant financial involvement. Bustards' photographing is not cheap when you add up all the costs. But I say it was worth it, especially that those negative impressions and huge efforts fade away and you keep those positive and beautiful views, not to mention the pictures. Also, I flew to Spain to see if there is any chance to reintroduce the bustards in Poland. There are many aspects impeding their return to our nature's womb. First, very important, being the need to separate large rural areas (short planted or meadows) where the admittance for anyone besides occasionally visiting farmer would be forbidden or restrained. And in our urbanized reality and with big density, in Greater Poland at least, it would be a rather significant problem. We can not change the timid nature of those creatures. When surprised they become in fact helpless as they sit on the ground stunned from fright. Their only mean of defence is flying and they need tim and space for that, which they do not have when being startled. Swans which are smaller than bustards almost always start and land in the water, always alee as it is easier for them to soar in the air. Bustards, espacially the tooting ones, do not have comfortable means of starting and it is that much harder when someone blocks or close their path to escape. They absorb themselves in mating wooing only when undisturbed, then they start their mating dance. Sitting in the dark watching booth I wait for the sunrise which will unveil the surrounding meadows on which you can spot (every couple of tens or hundreds meters) shaky feathery balls. Sight, I assure you, is incredible. Another obstacle to reintroduction is the fact that Bustards' females lay 2 to 3 eggs. If they lay them like ducks (couple times more), for example, than the possibility of a successful breeding and quick increase of their population would be much bigger. Observing the Bustards I have noticed that in the evening when they spotted a fox they were not really concerned, same with a farmer couple of hundreds of meters afar plowing the field on a tractor. So they do not need such a “sterile” environment to live and breed. I think that there are many people in Poland that have a necessary knowledge and qualifications to successfully run a program of reintroduction of the Bustards in Poland. We are a big European country in which, I think (and I work in environmetnal protection) the funds for this cause would be possible to assign, not to mention the possibility of receiving EU funds. Difficulty lies not with financing but with emerging a competent and charizmatic organizer who would focus a group of people to manage this task. In a nearly 40 million society it should not be a problem...
Last miunute news- 10/2019
Unfortunately, there was no next encounter with bustards, but I have finally converted my photos of bustards to slideshow. Yes, after 6 years the presentation was created - the presentation of the birds that are a special species for me. The presentation has been posted on YouTube and I provide a link to it in the information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aor5TfgEGPc