POLAND: BIRDS & ART IN ROYAL KRAKÓW SEPTEMBER 3–11, 2019 Great Spotted Woodpecker ©Rick Wright LEADERS: RICK WRIGHT & GERARD GORMAN LIST COMPILED BY: RICK WRIGHT VICTOR EMANUEL NATURE TOURS, INC. 2525 WALLINGWOOD DRIVE, SUITE 1003 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78746 WWW.VENTBIRD.COM POLAND: BIRDS & ART IN ROYAL KRAKÓW September 3–11, 2019 By Rick Wright Photo Gerard Gorman What do birders talk about? Birds, of course. Birding. Even, truth be told, just occasionally, other birders. And, if you happened to be part of our congenial and universally interested group in Kraków, just about everything else—from the origins of the word (or words?) “slug” to the meaning of heraldic swans and the vexed identity of the Polish National Museum’s most famous mustelid. In between captivating conversation, we explored the landscapes, natural and cultural, of Poland’s most appealing city and the surrounding countryside. Of necessity, many birding trips skimp on the creature comforts, but we lived in the lap of luxury in our elegant hotel right on the Rynek Główny, Kraków’s vast medieval Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 2 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 market square. Gothic and baroque churches, Renaissance palaces, and the enormous Cloth Hall market were at our very doorstep, with fine food and drink just a few short steps away in every direction. The Wawel, the massive castle complex comprising palaces, the cathedral, and daunting fortifications, was an easy walk down the Royal Way, itself a veritable encyclopedia of architecture. A quiet early morning from our hotel. Photo Rick Wright It took just a day or so to familiarize ourselves with the compact city and its charms, such that we could take full advantage of the odd free moment for shopping, sightseeing, or ice cream. We quickly found that the city was far from birdless: flocks of Jackdaws, Rooks, and Hooded Crows flew in every afternoon to stage before roosting, and the parks and tree- lined avenues produced tits, woodpeckers, and Black Redstarts as we wandered from sight to sight. The glorious high choir of St. Mary's, just a few steps from our hotel door. Photo Rick Wright It would be invidious to force the choice, but our favorite moments on our strolls had to include regularly hearing (and seeing) the trumpeter of St. Mary’s as he blew his Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 3 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 hourly tune, or debating the meaning of the white mustelid in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Woman with an Ermine/Weasel/Stoat/Ferret , or admiring the eighteenth-century ship-like pulpit in the abbey church of Tyniec. Our excellent meals, too, took us into beautiful settings, from the impressive fourteenth-century cellars housing Chimera to the art nouveau whimsy of Jama Michalika. A light-hearted fresco above our table in Jama Michalika. Photo Rick Wright As enchanting as Kraków proper is, we were still eager to get out of the city to experience the birdlife of central Europe in migration season. The scrubby woodlands beneath Tyniec abbey were alive with Chiffchaffs, Great and Blue tits, Spotted Flycatchers, and the first of many, many jays we would encounter. Our walk along the placid Vistula there turned up Caspian Gulls and two remarkably obliging European Kingfishers; the colorful little water sprites fished across the channel from us, flashing electric-blue and deep orange as they changed perches low above the stream. On the other side of the city, the ancient oxbow of Nowa Huta provided rich hunting grounds for a beautiful Common Kestrel, while Barn Swallows—their white underparts and filamentous tail streamers so unlike American birds—hawked insects high above as they worked their way south. It was here, too, that Gerard introduced us to “Robin’s pincushions,” delicately frilly galls produced when a diplolepsis wasp lays its eggs in the twigs of a wild rose; the gall is named not for the familiar red-breast, but rather for Robin Goodfellow, the mischievous imp of the English countryside who would serve as inspiration for Shakespeare’s Puck. Photo Rick Wright Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 4 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 Nowa Huta, after the morning's rain. Photo Rick Wright Forest habitats around the world are notoriously difficult birding in fall migration, but our visits to the Tyniec and Wolski woods, though generally less lively than our walks along the river or past the fields of Nowa Huta, resulted in some of the most memorable encounters of our tour. In Tyniec, two European Nuthatches fed nonchalantly in the low branches and even on the ground in front of us; the moment was the more poignant for its precise setting, the somber memorial to more than 500 Kraków Jews murdered by the Nazis in 1942. Photo Rick Wright We spent our last birding day in the Wolski forest, in hopes of finding some of the woodpeckers that are so famous a part of Poland’s avifauna. With Gerard in the lead, there was no way we could fail. Great Spotted Woodpeckers performed admirably right in the parking lot, and we had walked hardly half an hour into the woods when a greenish shape flashed across the trail to land on a dead stub above us. The Gray-headed Woodpecker is a Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 5 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 not overly common, and usually shy, resident of continental woodlands, and we were delighted to have a good 25 minutes with this male, a long-awaited “lifer” for some of us and a welcome sighting indeed to all. Photo Rick Wright As if that were not enough, just as we turned to leave the woodpecker to his foraging, a great black bird swooped past us through the trees: a Black Woodpecker, Europe’s largest and one of the world’s most dramatically plumaged picids. Less accommodating than our Gray-headed, this one flew on, not to be seen again, but it was still some time before our excited little group of birders could catch our breath again. So it went the entire time we were together: birds, art, history, excitement, and great good company. It was hard to believe that our tour had ended when we met for our final hearty dinner together, and I hope that all of us look forward as much as I do to our next opportunity to explore another landscape equally rich in the human and the wild. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 6 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 Photo Rick Wright ITINERARY September 3: en route to Kraków. September 4: assembly at hotel 4:30 pm. Warm, bright skies, calm. Walk around main market 4:30-6:10 pm. Dinner in hotel 6:30-8:00 pm. September 5: breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Departure 8:40 am. Arrival Vistula at Tyniec Abbey 9:10 am. Birding river trail to 12:40 pm. Bright, clear, calm, 60s up to mid-70s F. Lunch at Tyniec Abbey 12:55- 1:50 pm. Monastery museum 2:00-2:30 pm. Abbey church 2:30-2:50 pm. Tyniec Woods and Shoah memorial 3:10-4:15 pm. At hotel 4:50 pm. Dinner and checklist 6:30-8:40 pm. Warm, clear, calm. September 6: breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Departure for Zator fish ponds 8:30 Birding the Wawel. Photo Gerard Gorman am. Roadside sunflower patch 9:35-9:50. Partly cloudy, calm, low 70s F. Spytkowice fish ponds 10:10 am to 1:15 pm. Lunch at Pod Lipani 1:20-2:25 pm. Pzereb fish ponds 2:30-3:30 pm. At hotel 4:45 pm. Dinner at Gruzinskie Chaczapuri 7:00-9:25 pm. Mostly clear, calm, 60s F. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 7 Poland: Birds & Art in Royal Kraków, 2019 September 7 : breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Departure 9:00 am. High overcast, calm, low 60s F. Royal Way to Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Andreas, Wawel Cathedral. Coffee break 11:45-12:10 pm. Mist and clouds. Wawel Cathedral Treasury and Museum 12:20-1:10. Lunch at Groble to 3:10 pm. Mostly cloudy, dry, calm, 60s F. Walk along Vistula and Royal Way to Sts. Peter and Paul. At hotel 4:45 pm. Steady rain. Dinner and checklist 7:00-9:15 pm. Partly cloudy, calm, 60s F. September 8 : breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Heavy rain, then clearing; low 60s F. Departure 9:30 am. National Museum 10:00-11:40. Coffee 11:45-12:25. Henry Jordan Park 12:30- 1:15. Partly cloudy, calm, high 60s F. Lunch 1:45-3:10 pm. At hotel 3:50 pm. Dinner and checklist 6:00-7:50 pm. Clear, calm, 60s F. September 9 : breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Rain, distant thunder, followed by intermittent light rain and mist. Departure 8:30 am. Nowa Watching woodpeckers in the Wolski Forest. Photo Rick Huta park and wildlife reserve 8:50- Wright 11:40 am. LIght mist followed by partial clearing; 60s F. At hotel 12:25 pm. Lunch 1:00-2:25 pm. St. Mary’s Basilica 3:00-4:10. Heavy showers, followed by partial clearing; low 60s F. Dinner 6:30-8:15 pm. Partly cloudy, high 50s F. September 10 : breakfast in hotel beginning 7:00 am. Bright, mostly clear, 50s F, breezy. Departure 8:30 am. Wolski Forest 8:50-11:50 am. At hotel 12:20 pm. Lunch 12:55-2:00 pm. Free time. Bright, clear, high 50s F. Dinner 6:00-7:55 pm.