ADU travels, expeditions and events
Ringing Camp at Pawlowice, Vistula River, Poland
10-21 July 2007
Photo Les Underhill |
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The ringing station at Pawlowice camps along the east bank of the Vistula River just outside the village of Pawlowice. The nearest sizeable town is Deblin. The station operates from the beginning of July until the end of August.
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Photo Les Underhill |
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This ringing station is a joint project of the University of Podlasie at Siedlce, the Waterbird Research Group Kuling and the University of Gdansk. While I was there, it was led by Dr Magda Remisiewicz, Department of Vertebrate Ecology and Zoology, University of Gdansk. During the two-month period of southward migration of waders, the ringing station is staffed by a series of volunteers, many of them students doing masters and doctoral degrees through the two universities. The whole team collaboratively collects data for these (and other) research projects.
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Photo Les Underhill |
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The ringing station at Pawlowice is along a natural, unregulated section of the Vistula River, about 100 km south of Warsaw. Although the river still has 500 km to flow before it reaches the Baltic Sea not far from the city of Gdansk, it is only about 100 m above sea level. This section of the river is part of a landscape park, which means that the course of the river will not be human-modified in the future. The ringing station (51 36.713N 21 38.946E) is located at a spot where the river is at its widest, about 1 km, and where there are extensive sandy beaches.
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Photo Les Underhill |
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The objective at this site is to gather data on the southward migration of waders migrating along the Vistula River. The main catching method is the walk-in trap. About 20 traps like this are set up in shallow muddy sections at the water's edge. As the water-level of the river rises and falls, the traps are regularly moved into new positions. The traps are checked two-hourly from first light at 0500 until it is eventually dark at 2300. Because the waders are on passage through the ringing station, we were always dealing with "new" birds, which had not "learnt" the traps - this kind of continuous trapping of waders would not work well in South Africa, because it is an endpoint of bird migration, and the waders present at a wetland would quickly learn to avoid the traps.
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Photo Les Underhill |
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The most frequently trapped wader was the Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucus. This bird had a Finnish ring. We also trapped Wood Sandpiper, Common Snipe, Temminck's Stint, Little Ringed Plover and Redshank. The walk-in traps also caught Pied and Yellow Wagtails and a Meadow Pipit.
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Photo Les Underhill
Adult and first-year Little Ringed Plover
Photo Les Underhill
Walk in traps on the Vistula River at sunset
Photo Les Underhill
Waterbird Ringing Group Kuling
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| Every day, a count of the waterbirds (and raptors) along a 3 km section of the Vistula River was made. This table contains the maximum of these counts, over the period 1 July to 20 July |
| Grey Heron Ardea cinerea | 10 |
| White Stork Ciconia ciconia | 1 |
| Black Stork Ciconia nigra | 1 |
| Mute Swan Cygnus olor | 3 |
| Greylag Goose Anser anser | 30 |
| White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla | 1 |
| Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus | 1 |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus | 2 |
| Pied Avocet Recurvirostra avocetta | 2 |
| Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius | 2 |
| Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula | 2 |
| European Golden Plover Pluvialis apricaria | 1 |
| Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus | 189 |
| Dunlin Calidris alpina | 1 |
| Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea | 1 |
| Temminck's Stinit Calidris temminckii | 2 |
| Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus | 1 |
| Redshank Tringa totanus | 9 |
| Greenshank Tringa nebularia | 10 |
| Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola | 32 |
| Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos | 36 |
| Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata | 1 |
| Ruff Philomachus pugnax | 1 |
| Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago | 1 |
| Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus | c. 20 |
| Common Gull Larus canus | c. 50 |
| Common Tern Sterna hirundo | c. 15 |
| Little Tern Sterna albifrons | c. 10 |
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Photo Les Underhill |
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At the end of a long day's fieldwork, darkness finally fell after 2100. Time to braai sausages, Poland-style ...
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Photo Les Underhill |
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... and to get out the guitar, and sing from the ring repertoire of Polish folksongs.
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Photo Magda Remisiewicz |
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... preparing this story ... Recharging the batteries of the laptop was a multistep operation. The camp had a small solar panel (about 0.5 square metres) which efficiently charged 12V car batteries. This in turn drove a transformer which converted 12V direct current into 220V alternating current, which drove the laptop power pack which converted 220V alternating current into 18.5V direct current to recharge the laptop battery.
Cell phones were recharged using the same system. Rechargeable penlight size batteries were recharged via a cigarette lighter attached directly to the car battery.
The opportunity to learn about waders on passage was provided through a grant in terms of the Poland-South Africa Science Agreement, administered by the National Research Foundation in South Africa and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland.
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Les Underhill
15 July 2002
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