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bieszczady

Eyes seen by no other eye

Posted on 10 May 2018 6 Comments

A long time ago, when I was cute and little, my dad used to take me out in the forest every weekend.

He was a hunter, with a profound knowledge of big mammals and their ecology. The type of hunter that uses his binoculars way more than he uses his rifle. I did not follow in his footsteps however, but took the photographic approach when it concerns big game tracking. Especially those with large canine teeth.

One of my favourite carnivore regions in Europe is Bieszczady, Poland. Vast forests cover thousands of acres and contain some of the highest densities of Bear, Lynx and Wolf in Europe. Also, this is where the European Bison still roams freely.

It was my fifth visit to Bieszczady and this is what I had seen so far on my previous trips:

  • One time Eurasian Lynx
  • Three times wolf
  • 0 bears
  • Many bison

Simply Implying it is far from easy to see large carnivores in the wild. Yet we were in the best season with quiet forests (hunting stops in December, so the forests had been deserted for four months), combined with hungry bears awakening from hibernation.

Bieszczady in spring time. What’s not to like. This beaver made himself a nice swimming pool.

A spring trip aimed at tracking down wolves, was the purpose of my voyage. And since these are so hard to find, I decided to take my own master tracker. Who had never seen wolves in the wild.

Selfie skill level: below zero

Spring ahoy

Cuckoo singing. Is there a more typical sound of spring?

Grey wagtail in a rapid of the mighty river San. Long exposure.

 

A life lasting maybe five centuries. Seemingly doing it without effort. I just love big trees, like this Linden.

A lot of time was spent scanning the open meadows, since April means grazing time for bison and bear.

Define luxury

Holidays are meant to be relaxing, and this poses a problem when you visit Bieszczady in April: No chicks, No beach, But lots of sun!

However, the sun rises at 5am this time of year. So you kinda have to be in the forest by 4am.

Meaning we had to push ourselves and do quiet hikes at dusk and dawn… With result:

 

Red deer with a one year old calf. Mom was pregnant, which means that soon this calf was going to be pushed away.
Such one year old calf has never left the side of its mom, and one day just simply is pushed away (rather hard). Nature and its mysterious ways never ceases to amaze.

Meadows are nice and often show you wildlife, but many of the good stuff never leaves the forest. I stalked this shy roe deer buck and was able to observe him. Approaching a big boy like this is hard, they are very wary and you have to crawl up to them from under the wind.

Bison were only reintroduced in the Carpathian mountains during the sixties, and all animals nowadays are descendant of just 12 (!) founding animals (of which 11 were low-land bison (Bialowieza), the remaining bull originating from the Carpathian mountains). This means that maintaining -and even creating- genetic diversity of the 3000 animals currently alive, is the highest priority. That is why animals even have been caught, and placed in other herds.

End of April truly is the best time since bison leave the forest and go grazing.

Two bulls

All this walking yielded results. We stumbled upon a foraging bear and we saw this wolf patrolling his territory:

But no closer images.

We reckoned the time had come to sit in hides. There are two hides that have been successful over the past years. One is owned by Jan Kelchtermans (Europesbig5), the other is owned by a local Polish guy who dumps some meat in the forest every day for his local wolf pack. Both these hides are good at some times, but not so good at other times. Large carnivores have huge home ranges and often stay away for days when they made a kill somewhere far away. Luckily the meat also attracts raptors like this Lesser spotted eagle and Golden eagle.

During the night, we could see bears in the moonlight as well:

Brown bear taken at ISO 10000 in almost complete darkness. We named him Rambo, because he was bloody huge.

But what we really really wanted to see closer, were wolves. Only once in all these years of mammal watching, have I seen a wolf closer than 50m (Spain). I took a few images of that one, but wanted more.

Seeing wolves is possible in Bieszczady, but having a good chance at photographing them… that is an entire different story.

I had long heard of a local guy where several people got lucky, he could not promise us anything but we went for it and spent several 18 hour waiting sessions in the hide.

With result! There was a pack of nine animals that only came after dusk and before dawn, but there was a solitary wolf that occurred several times during good light.

When this walks out of the forest and looks straight into your lens, shit becomes holy.

The look wolves have, is simply beyond anything else.

We are coming for you

And all of a sudden they start to play and cuddle

But only when they come close, you can “read” their insanely grey eyes.

Alfa male, on the only time he was calm enough to approach us. Never ever looking away. Wary, because of the camera sounds.

It was an amazing experience to spend time with this pack. Seeing social behaviour, the alfa and beta roles, and seeing how nine animals work together as one being, made a big impression on me.

One example: they never just come out of the forest all together. No, there is a scout, that checks the feeding place first and wanders all around it, then going back in the forest, followed by the pack carefully getting into the meadow.

On two occasions the pack started howling at night, super close to the hide, and we got an impression what it must be like to live in the forest and hear the top predator at night.

It is clear I can talk for a few more hours about wolves. For now I let the images speak.

Take care

Karl

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in: Geen categorie, Reizen | Tagged: bieszczady, canis lupus, wolf, wolven

Late night pussy

Posted on 30 December 2015 2 Comments

This blog post will explain how the three of us found the Holy grail of European mammal watching, the Eurasian lynx, just last week on the border between Poland and Ukraine.

KVG_0874

The three of us being:
PJ -Mister Lova Lova- D’hondt, here photographed whilst testing a camera trap

IMG_2569(phone pic)

Iwan -Don’t touch my food- Lewylle

KVG_1084

And I was there as well: Schermafdruk 2015-12-31 08.25.11

The plan on the trip was to spend some time in Bieszczady with Jan (Europesbig5) in the EB5 hide, and to test a dslr camera trap that we had been building. But once the equipment was installed, we had plenty of time, which we were planning on using to find bison.

KVG_0866

The trip started by spending time with our friends Wiola and Marcin. They are nice people and it is always great seeing them again.

IMG_2641Great Christmass meal. Thanks to Wiola and “Boem Boem Marcin”!! (phone pic)

Initially we wanted to track bison in the snow, but given the exceptionally warm winter, there was no snow, and bison had food all over the forest. Hence they were very difficult to find, and once found, running off easily. This was also an issue for carnivores, not being attracted to our bait. We were hoping for cold, that did not come.

Schermafdruk 2015-12-31 08.25.34Running bison shot by PJ; Iwan and I were behind so no good shots. Superb close sighting nonetheless.

Somewhat frustrated, we started taking pictures of birds 😉

KVG_0863

KVG_0935

Crossbills started to gain summer plumage

KVG_0954

Since it’s always about the mammals, combined with the fact that it was dark a 4pm, made us decide to really go for a lot of spotlighting.
It’s been some years since we started doing this, and time after time again Eurasian Lynx is highest on the shining whishlist.

To give you an idea what I’m on about, I will portray some of the efforts we have undertaken to see Eurasian lynx: France: Vosges, four nights / Finland: at least ten nights / Slovenia: two trips and around 4 nights / Croatia: at least 5 nights / Poland: It was my sixth trip there, in total around 20 nights of spotlighting in Bialowieza, Biebrza and Bieszczady.

So we never saw it? Oh yes we did. After four years of intensively yet fruitless searching for Eurasian Lynx, Iwan and I actually managed to twitch a female and cub in Sweden back in 2011 (read the story here: http://www.karlvanginderdeuren.be/blog/?p=343). Apart from that, we spotlighted a highly probable lynx in Croatia, but could not be 100% certain. PJ had never seen one, and had not only been dreaming but also working hard for it, for about eight years.

The wildest part of Bieszczady, is the Ukranian border. We decided to spend time there, scanning at dusk and dawn, whilst spotlighting after darkness.

   KVG_0923Bieszczady is one of the wildest places in Europe, and the Ukranian border (here in the valley in the image) for me only adds to the atmosphere. I truly love this vast wild place.

KVG_0924

Scanning and finding nothing, again resulted in the three of us photographing birds.

KVG_0984

Long-tailed tit Aegithalus caudatus caudatus

KVG_1007Goldcrest in the shade.

Then it became dark. Iwan took place behind me, Pj sat in front next to me. Shining is actually quite difficult. Anybody can hold a lamp of coarse, but the shiner must aim the light far ahead of the car, so that the driver can slow down (preferably without stopping because it is often then that animals become wary of your presence) when an animal is seen. That way you can look at it for some seconds, and subsequently just continue driving. This works realy well and wildlife doesn’t distinguish between an ordinary car passing and a car passing with four lights instead of two. The driver must drive fast enough to look like a normal car, whilst slow enough so that you actually see stuff.
Hence, I think shining/spotlighting is to be considered a craft. A craft we have been practising for many years, in many countries.

My car, two very very bright lightforces and a camera always ready to make some pics (phone pic).

PJ_151221_0653Tawny owl along the road at night

The evening of all evenings started by seeing nothing, for quite some time. All of a sudden Iwan saw reflecting eyes for a very brief moment. Then he saw nothing again. Convinced that two huge blinking eyes must be an animal, he asked me to slow down. Pj on the other hand was scanning the right side. I was trying to maneuver the car so all of us could have a look at the area iwan was pointing out, but whilst I was only beginning to slow down PJ whispered -or better shouted- “It’s a Lynx it’s a Lynx!!!!!”. Some very very very nervous seconds followed, with me taking the light from PJ, to let Iwan have a look through his bins. Try to imagine what Iwan went through the first seconds: PJ and I were shouting lynx and all he could do was not move (so not grab his bins) and keep his light pointing steady. But we were lucky, this Lynx was very calm and sitting on an old cart. So shortly after, I held the second lamp and Iwan could see the big cat.

Copyright of following images goes to Iwan, Pj and myself. Since all of us worked together both with lamps and a camera, to get an image of this elusive carnivore.

PJ_151224_1180There it was, after more than ten years of looking. A big female Eurasian Lynx.

Then we made a plan to get a better picture. PJ climbed out of the car and made his way closer to the lynx (in darkness). The animal was so calm that it stayed for another five minutes and she let us make better images.

PJ_151224_1354-bewerkt

PJ_151224_1403

Although it wasn’t my first Eurasian lynx, seeing this really felt like seeing the snow leopard last year. A mega mega mega thrill.

IMG_2630Phone pic of the wildboyz after seeing such wild pussy.

Now we can start looking for sasquatch.

Posted in: Dieren, Mensen | Tagged: bieszczady, eurasian lynx, lynx lynx, poland

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