Alphabetical list

Although there were two encounters with the Pallas’s grasshopper-warbler in Thailand, I did not manage to take a satisfactory photo. Grasshopper-warblers were always very skittish and appeared only for a fraction of a second. On rice fields nearby the road there was a swampy dip, which was covered by lush and dense vegetation. In peace and silence we were standing by that clump awaiting the grasshopper-warbler. An interesting thing is that on such a small area we could observe several bird species, which looked from behind the plants from time to time.

A few documentary pictures of the pallas’s gull initiated a gallery of this bird on my website. Unfortunately, working with a converter 2x and a extensive cropping always ends in the same way. The pallas’s gul is a rare guest in Poland. The pictures in the gallery present young birds. Pallas’s gulls belong to big gulls. Their weight can reach up to 2 kilograms and the wingspan is up to 1.7 meters.

I managed to photograph several species of warblers while on a trip to Thailand. It was not easy taking into account all the difficulties in photographing them. Mainly they stayed quite far in the treetops and to make matters worse they were very busy. Often before the camera focused automatically, the bird had gone. Their small size (about 10 grams - three times lighter than a sparrow) did not make the task any easier. Birds often were hidden behind needles or leaves. Taking pictures was only one of the difficulties but the real problem was how to identify them.

And again only one meeting with the Australian species and just a few "commemorative" photos. This bird is not as colorful as our cuckoo but as a  parent behaves in the same way.  Pallid Cuckoos just like our cuckoos are not concerned about building a nest and all the staff connected with rearing. They plant their egg into the nest where other similar eggs are laid. The Pallid Cuckoo occurs throughout Australia, feeds mainly on insect larvae.

I must admit that I really hoped we would find these birds, especially the pallid harrier. Tanzania is their wintering area, whereas in Poland it is very difficult to encounter these birds. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. In wintering sites of Amur falcons in South Africa there are hundreds or maybe thousands of them. And here in Tanzania only few opportunities to find the harriers. To make matters worse, the birds were skittish and it was difficult to build an interesting, dynamic gallery of these species.

The presented photos of the Pale Swift were taken in Dubrovnik at the end of May 2022. Until  that time it had been found in Poland twice time. There were a lot of swifts in Dubrovnik at that time. Overhead flew dozens, if not hundreds of birds among which dominated the Alpine Swift. (391/467)