An SX50 goes to Belarus 2013! (2 Viewers)

[Cactusdave]

Had a week in Belarus 4-11th May 2013 with Bird Holidays. An excellent week of warm sunshine and good birds, though with very high water levels, especially around Turov, finding some of the special birds and getting good views was as I understand, perhaps more difficult than usual. As leader Phil was packing a 1DmkIV and 400 DO IS and I hope that at some point he will share his I'm sure excellent pics, my little SX50 felt a little lightweight in every sense |:d|. Nevertheless I think it performed pretty well and enabled me to get some pleasing shots of birds sometimes at considerable distances, as well as some insects,flowers and scenery, and I was very glad I had taken it. I'll post a selection in no particular order. First the bird everyone wants to see, azure tit, and what a little stunner. Actually it was quite easy to get good views, as we saw several birds disputing potential nest sites, visiting a probable nest hole, calling and singing.

 

[Cactusdave]

The azure tit sightings came towards the end of the week when we were based in Turovand birding the (very well flooded!) flood plain of the Pripyat River. I should perhaps go back to earlier in the week when we were in the beautiful woodland of the Belowezhskaya Puscha National Park. We saw all the European woodpeckers here, with the exception of Syrian which we picked up in Turov, as well as pygmy owl collared flycatcher, red breasted flycatcher, lesser spotted eagle, crane and black stork and much else. What a lot of people come to this area to see however are its mammals and especially the European bison, reintroduced here and now thriving. We were fortunate to see a large herd of 29 animals. They were fairly distant, perhaps half a mile or so with some heat haze, so I was pleased with the pictures. Taken with various degrees of zoom from full optical through to full optical plus full digital. We were also very fortunate to have prolonged views of this pine marten. Here the SX50 struggled a little with the back lighting and branch clutter and I'm looking forward to seeing Phil's pictures.

 

[Cactusdave]

Though we had good views of all the woodpeckers in this area, grey headed and middle spot being particularly common, photography in woodland with the SX50 was not easy with the combination of shade and against the light views, so I mainly confined myself to enjoying the birds through binoculars. I managed to get this rather amusing shot of a middle spot at its nest hole though. The continual background sound here was the song of the wood warbler, by far the commonest warbler, and and seeking every available perch to get maximum impact. There were a few butterflies around, the most interesting was this pretty green hairstreak.

 

[Cactusdave]

Best photographable raptor here was this fine lesser spotted eagle. The SX50 does a good job of ignoring the clutter and lighting is good.

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Nice report Dave. What settings were you using on the SX50?

Rich

 

[Cactusdave]

Thanks Clark. The settings I used are based on those suggested by Crazyfingers in RoyC's long and very useful thread on the SX50. I have got a lot of useful tips from that thread.

 

[Cactusdave]

After our first 3 nights at the Belowezhskaya Puscha, we moved on to the rather more urban setting of the Hotel Energia in Beloozersk. All our hotels in Belarus were of very good standard, clean and with good bathrooms, though hotel food was rather basic and not very appetizing. This base gave us access to two important National Parks, Sporovo and Vigonosevsky. All our visits to National Parks were accompanied by knowledgeable local park rangers. We visited two loocations within the Sporovo park. We were ferried across to a rather rickety board walk through reeds and more open wet habitat. The key bird here was citrine wagtail, now expanding as a breeder in Eastern Europe. We got good views and the long range of the SX50 came into its own for distant reed perched birds. Other birds seen well here included the the local white-spotted form of the bluethroat and river warbler.

 

[Cactusdave]

After our adventure on the rickety board walk we made our way to another fairly nearby site within the national park where aquatic warbler breed. This is a good site for viewing this rare breeder in that it is possible to view from a minor road which is slightly above the area where the birds breed and sing, making good scope views possible without the need to risk disturbance by approaching the birds too closely. Weather conditions were ideal, warm and still, and we enjoyed good views as well as hearing plenty of song.

The next day were were promised a treat, views of Great Grey Owl at the nest. This owl breeds regularly in Belarus, but as in other countries the number of nests depend on the vole population. After a very severe Winter and very wet Spring, vole numbers were low. We were very fortunate therefore that the Vigonosevsky Park rangers had identified one nest which was well established, viewable from a track and could safely be shown to visitors. First we had to pick up a park ranger from his village house. Like a lot of Belarusian village houses this had something of a small holding around it which would have delighted 'Good Life' fans. The ranger's house even boasted its own White Stork nest. A couple of pictures of the ranger's sweet black garden pigs and his stork nest.

 

[Cactusdave]

The Great Grey Owl's nest involved a walk down a well rutted forest track into fairly dense conifer woodland, spruce I think. The nest was quite viewable from the path with the female sitting tight on a youngster. Better still the male was on guard duty in a nearby tree, though to be honest he was doing more napping than guarding and didn't seem in the least bothered by us. Light was tricky, bright from above through the foliage, but the birds in quite strong shade and masked by branches from many angles. I took a lot of pictures to get something that was reasonable. This was our first taste of the local mosquitoes, with the warm weather and large amounts of water it was only a matter of time before they got to be a problem, and from then on we were well bitten, even with lots of repellant and supposedly mossie proof clothing.

 

[MKinHK]

A very nice report. Love the pix of the wood warbler and colourblind GG Owl.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Cactusdave]

Thanks Mike.

After the Great Grey Owl we had some time to kill before trying for lekking Great Snipe in the evening. We had been warned that the usual lek at Turov was flooded, which was a shame, as apparently it can give good views. However our Great Grey Owl ranger knew a local snipe lek that he was happy to take us to so it seemed the best option, even though it meant a late return to the hotel. We killed time with a recce to the site which turned up some nice feeding white storks and super views of European beaver, which seem to be really common in Belarus. We also visited a small logging settlement which turned up good views of wryneck as well as a green sandpiper feeding at a pool edge, a species which breeds here.

 

[Cactusdave]

In the early evening we returned to the lek site with the local guide. It was a good job he was with us, as we nearly bogged the van down in what had looked like a puddle, but turned out to be more of a pond! He also lead us across a very boggy meadow to the right place to view the Great Snipe without disturbance or anyone disappearing up to their middle! While we were waiting we were entertained by a number of yellow wagtails and drumming common snipe. Most of the yellow wagtails here resembled the blue-headed flava form, but there were some that were more like the grey-headed thunbergi type. The snipe soon began their performance, and we enjoyed excellent scope views in good light. This was by far the best view I have had of Great Snipe and their ridiculous posturing! Hopefully Phil our group leader with the advantage of a large DSLR sensor and a fast lens managed to get some decent shots. A male black grouse also appeared at the back of the lek for a bit of variety. We stayed as long as we dared with the thought of returning to find the hotel restaurant closed and no food to be got anywhere a nagging worry, then squelched our way back to the van, narrowly avoided getting it stuck again, bounced down the most potholed track in Belarus to the tarmaced road and made it back to the hotel in time for another strange but gratefully received Belorusian meal.

 

[Paul - Herts]

Looks like a great place to go. Fascinating report with matching photos, my thanks for sharing it all

 

[Cactusdave]

Thanks Bhoggy.

The next day we started a longish drive to our final Hotel in Turov on the Pripyat river. We had a lunch stop at some fish ponds at Beloe. Unfortunately the ponds were either full or completely dried out with little mud to attract waders. Nonetheless the large flooded ponds held plenty of birds, with a pair of smew which benefit from nest boxes placed for them here and several nice male black necked grebes the stars. White tailed eagle (juvenile) showed well and there were plenty of marsh terns around.

 

[Cactusdave]

I forgot to mention a nice yellowhammer picking seeds from some horse dung at this location. I know it's a common bird here too, but my local birds won't pose like this!

 

[Cactusdave]

As we neared Turov the extent of the flood this year was very obvious. Fortunately the town is approached by a long bridge which is more like a sort of causeway, so there was no problem in accessing it. Just beyond the main flooded area was a partially flooded meadow/ploughed area which had been protected by a high flood wall. This area had exposed mud and it was clear that some of the waders displaced elsewhere had relocated here. There were numbers of breeding plumage ruff as well as black tailed godwit, wood sandpiper, Temminck's stint, dunlin, turnstone and best of all two pairs of Terek sandpipers. These were a fair distance away but good scope views were had as the light was about perfect. Unfortunately we never saw Terek sandpipers closer than this, a definite downside of the flood. These birds are apparently normally much closer when water levels are lower. There were also many marsh terns, especially smart white winged black terns, but smaller numbers of black terns and whiskered terns were also present.

 

[Cactusdave]

The next day our priority was to get views of azure tit for which Turov is the classic location. We were told about 50 pairs breed in the area in habitat which ranges from riverside trees to back gardens close to the river. Like blue tit and great tit, azure tit uses any available holes as nest sites. In fact in size, call and behaviour, azure tit reminded me of great tit. We went to a known 'hotspot' a few kilometres out of town and found a pair and an extra and jealous male at a probable nest site in a hole in an old metal wiring box thrown out by a pumping station. We enjoyed prolonged views of these beautiful birds seeing much interesting interaction between the males. This site also produced good views of river warbler and we heard a very elusive marsh warbler, which refused to show. Rather surprisingly the only example of the latter species on the trip. We also enjoyed fine views of a super male penduline tit gathering nesting material.

 

[Cactusdave]

I should mention we had a pre-breakfast walk in Turov which was pretty productive. We found a Syrian woodpecker in riverside trees, a species that has only recently colonised the area, which gave us a full set of European woodpeckers for the trip. The interesting back gardens were great habitat and we soon found a show off thrush nightingale which happily posed for us for for prolonged views.

 

[Mick Sway]

Great images and report Dave.
Best
Mick

 

[Cactusdave]

Thanks Mick.Later on that day we visited another fish farm which apparently had been really good the year before with masses of good waders on the exposed mud of the drained ponds. However we found the same issue as at the other ponds we had visited. Either ponds were completely full or empty and the muddy bottom already baked hard. We didn't linger here too long, but visited a productive area of riverine willow and scrub close to the flooded Pripyat. This produced super views of a very vocal male Barred warbler. One of my favourite birds and my poor photos certainly don't do it justice. Plenty of red backed shrikes, golden orioles and icterine warblers here too.