How high can a goose fly ? !

Unknown said:

My only experience of Warsaw airport is waiting about 2 hrs for a connection to Kraków. How the other half live. LOL

We had to use Warsaw airport in the '60's when we worked in Warsaw for a few weeks,pity we never got chance to do any touristy things and wandering around with binoculars may have got us a one way ticket to nowhere.The locals were fantastic to meet though and had a great hate for authority which in the conditions they were in I found quite inspiring.

Never got chance to fly on Concord but remember being on the East Coast and hearing booms before seeing the plane pass well off shore and in its later years it was doing tourist short flights from ;Leeds/Bradford airport and we had good views of it during the day when we were doing ranger patrols on nearby moors,fantastic looking plane.

As the Himalayas are well over 20,000 feet the Bar Headed Geese must be capable of flying in air that thin,strange when most humans need oxygen when climbing Everest and mountains of similar height.We have 4 or 5 Bar Headed that show up occasionally in our recording area but I doubt if they have crossed many mountains,maybe the foothills of the Pennines though.

Unknown said:

wspaniały, piękne konie i Zdjęcia  Tony !

Dziękuję Hazel to była dobra podróż (courtesy of Google LOL). I think we stayed in Zakopane or somewhere beginning with Z without many vowels. I remember seeing Crested Tits in the trees alongside the road. Didn't get any photos though.

lol Tony,   mówisz bardzo dobrą polską  !    (I googled it too as my pigeon Polish was over 20 years ago )     What a fantastic trip you must have had, Krakow  is a wonderful old town and hope you visited the famous indoor market !    To see such birdlife too must have been amazing, with such varied terrain from mountains, lakes, valleys;  its such an interesting country and vast.  

Unknown said:

mówisz bardzo dobrą polską  !

LOL Hazy. That translated as "you're talking about a very good Polish". I recommend Pledge "Clean and Shine".

We actually only had a morning in Krakow so didn't have much time to look around but I did walk through the market. This is, I think, the church where Karol Józef Wojtyła was Bishop of Krakow before he became Pope John Paul II. We couldn't look round because there was a service in progress but I did have a peek in from the back.

Actually, the birding wasn't all that good, apart from the Nutcracker, although the scenery was lovely. The best birding was further north in the Białowieża National Park and marshes the name of which I can't remember.

LOL Tony,  you are absolutely right about Jana Pawlo II and the Church in Krakow;  thats a lovely photo and these images bring back some very nice memories of our expat life out there.     The Biebrza  Marshes are probably what you are referring to although I never visited there.   Spent most of my time in and around the Warsaw area (lived 50 mins drive outside the City in the forested countryside)  but did see a little of the country, including a trip to Gdansk (by train) as the company my better half worked for (Shell) opened its first Petrol Station there and we went for the official opening.  When we visited Krakow and Zakopane we used to drive, staying in Krakow centre.  Such a lot of history to Poland and we heard one or two stories from my friend's late Babcia (Grandma) about her time during WWII ... remarkable tales of living during the time of occupation that almost bring tears to the eyes when you listen.  We have been lucky in our postings to have met such lovely and interesting people, experienced different cultures and been a part of it for a while.      

Hazel, TJ and Pete, Haven't been on the Forum since Friday but am very much enjoying catching up now.  Thanks for the photos and chat about Poland--very interesting. We hope to visit Poland one day so I will get back to you in due course, Hazel, about your friend in the travel business.

TJ, Your horse-drawn cart driver looks curiously rather like my Dad!

We got a bit off topic didn't we, Ann. Not sure how we went from high flying geese to Pope John Paul II via Poland but it was good fun.

Off topic, TJ?!  Surely not!  Love your link, Hazel!  And yes, high flying geese are extremely interesting.  How can the geese do that with so little oxygen?  Is it simply survival of the fittest, with those who can manage to fly over the Himalayas and back again being the only ones who reproduce?  Perhaps the birds' abilities to fly with little oxygen gradually increased over the generations as the Himalayas grew in height over thousands of years?  Or...?

It certainly is an amazing feat Ann and heard that they may use the jetstream tail winds to assist them.   There is so much still to know and understand about birds, it's fascinating stuff :)