In winter in Poland you can find Anatidae birds coming from Scandinavia and Siberia, in meadows and fields - rough-legged buzzards, and colourful bullfinches and waxwings bustling on urban trees.

Water birds dominated among the species that treat Poland as a warm country and come here for the winter - emphasised Antoni Marczewski of the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds (Ogólnopolskie Towarzystwo Ochrony Ptaków, OTOP). Many species of birds that nest in the north of Europe and the European and Asian parts of Russia are associated with the sea shore, which freezes quite early in winter in their homeland. So they travel to the Baltic Sea, to Polish inland reservoirs and unfrozen sections of rivers, where you can often find sawyer smew, mergansers and sea ducks: velvet scoter, long-tailed duck and common scoter. "People planning winter observations very often choose the nearest body of water. Even if you live in the south of the country, you still have a chance to see such northern species" - he said.

"Another habitat is often chosen during winter walks in search of birds are fields and meadows, where you can find rough-legged buzzard, distinguished from its close cousin - common buzzard - by feathered jumps, making it look like it had shorts with feathers. This species comes to Poland mainly from Scandinavia. Here these birds feed mainly on rodents, which they can find in the fields" - said Antoni Marczewski .

"During a walk in the fields, you may can also spot another predator - the hen harrier, which is the only one of four common species of harriers in Poland that overwinters here. Merlin, the smallest falcon in Europe, relatively rare, can also be spotted sometimes. Persons who manage to see this bird in the winter, can consider themselves lucky" - noted the OTOP representative.

You do not need to take long trips to admire the birds. Even the city offers opportunities to observe arriving birds that feed on trees and shrubs in city parks and squares. The best known are probably waxwings, whose entire flocks begin to appear in October or early November. "Waxwing is not only pretty, with thick plumage and colourful feathers, but also easy to observe. As a northern species, these birds do not know man well and do not scare easily - noted Antoni Marczewski. - In winter is also relatively easy to see bullfinches, some of which fly to Poland from the north. Some of them are Polish birds that hide from people during the warm period, and do not show often. Not everyone knows that bullfinch can also be found here in the spring and summer. In winter, their pink bellies look very picturesque on white snow".

Every few years there are also in so-called invasions of birds, for example fieldfares, very colourful birds of the thrush family. Their common cousins in Poland are blackbirds, males of which are all black, and females grey brown. "Fieldfare - especially, compared to its little coloured cousin, looks very colourful: it has a grey head, grey tail, brown wings, the underside of the body boldly speckled with yellow stain on the chest. A person seeing a fieldfare for the first time might think that it is a bird of paradise appearing out of nowhere in the garden or park" - said Marczewski. (PAP)

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