Four years in Poland
I have been “living in Poland” for almost four years by now and thought people might be interested in what kind of experience a very bad mammalwatcher has in this country. I couldn’t upload the file, so I sent it to Jon – nothing apparent happened but then someone told me they have already read it … I still don’t really understand, how they noticed that Jon uploaded it (as it is not advertised anywhere), so for the purposes helping everyone who wants to enjoy it, here it is:
8 Comments
-
Cathy Pasterczyk
I would love to see Spotted Souslik. Is it possible to see using only public transportation? I would be coming from Vienna, Austria. I am a US citizen living and working in Vienna, Austria. Is it possible or advisable to enter Poland now? Or would it be best to wait longer? Is there a good English-language web-site to get current information on the entry requirements into Poland? So many questions, and COVID is making things much harder.
-
JanEbr
Unfortunately, you can’t enter Poland right now if you do not live, study or work here. The situation is so absurd that if I were to leave Poland, I could not come back (because I never made some paperwork that most of other EU countries don’t even require). Check https://www.gov.pl/web/coronavirus/travel for updates (hope it shows up in English for you as well). Outside of the Covid problem, the Hubale reserve is only like 2 kms walk from the nearest train station, so it should be reachable without a car, even if a bit tedious. Taxis are actually dirt cheap in small towns in Poland so that’s also a viable option (but it’s not that easy if you don’t speak Polish at all).
-
-
Benny Voorn
Hi jan,
Thank you for the read and the information. We had plans to go to Bialowiesa at this time, but covid stopped it all. So that will wait for next year or so. My wife is Polish, so I visit the country regularly, but I have often just a little time to spent outdoors without the family. As they live in the west of Poland (Lubuskie), that is where I go mostly. Except for some holdays elsewehere in the country. If you ever decide to ‘hunt’for american mink; i saw one on 2 different occesions in and around Uscie Warta NP. Indeed hare, fox and roe deer are abundant. Red squirel was easy around Sklarska Poreba in the South West of Poland while II saw red deer on several occasions in the Biesczady (SE). Your reports inspires me to finally make a real effort to go East/ North East. A lot of places you mention I have been these past years, but I started mammalwatching only 2 years ago…. Had I known before haha. Goodluck and maybe in the future I will ask some more specific advise if possible.
-
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Ian Howarth
Thanks for this ‘real-world, warts and all’ report, which i greatly enjoyed. Google translate does an unusually poor, and often hilarious, job on the Polish-language on-line atlas to which you give a link — e.g., Microtus subterraneus (European pine vole) somehow comes out as “Common potato”!