NEW YORK, Nov 24 — About a half-mile from the Russian border, hidden in the rolling hills of northernmost Poland, is the tiny village of Zywkowo, population 25 humans and 43 pairs of nesting white storks. It is one of the country’s largest stork breeding colonies — their massive, tousled nests dot chimneys, rooftops and specially made platforms. They are wedged into tree branches and balanced above electrical wires.
As the human population has dwindled to 21 adults and four children, the locals have tied their future to the storks, which migrate every year from southern Africa to breed in the village, drawn by a wealth of pasture, farmlands and wetlands.
One man, in particular, has led the way.
Starting in the mid-1980s, Wladyslaw Andrejew (affectionately known in the area as the King of Storks) began wooing storks to his remote rural property, at first using a bike wheel to create a platform for the majestic birds.
The white eagle may be the symbol of Polish nationhood, but it is the white stork that holds the hearts of Poles. The birds are seen as bringing good fortune, and their arrival in late March heralds the onset of spring which, after the long, dark Polish winter, is no small thing.
For centuries they have migrated thousands of miles to spend the summer in the Polish countryside and bear their young. But the numbers are falling, to fewer than 45,000 in 2014, from 52,000 breeding pairs in 2004, according to the initial estimates of the International White Stork census, perhaps placing Poland second to Spain for the first time.
In northeast Poland, where nearly three-quarters of the country’s storks live, the decline has been less precipitous, largely because the region’s vast swaths of farmland, lakes and marshes provide ideal feeding grounds. Staked out high above the undulating hills and quiet villages, a cottage tourism industry has grown up around them.
Following their trail through the northeast provides an opportunity to explore a part of the country that is rich in history, wildlife and captivating landscapes, even one of the last primeval forests in Europe, home to the European bison.
We began our trek in Gdansk, Poland’s historic seaport and the birthplace of Solidarity, the trade union movement headed by Lech Walesa that led to the end of Communist control of the country in 1989. From there, we headed east to Malbork, one of the world’s largest castles. The enormous, red-brick structure was built, beginning in the 13th century, by the Teutonic Knights, an order of military monks who were awarded the land for their service in the Crusades. The castle had fallen into decay, and was heavily damaged in World War II, but has been painstakingly restored.
To the northeast is Frombork, a Gothic city, where Nicolaus Copernicus lived from 1510 to 1543. It was in Frombork that he made his observations that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The city’s 14th-century cathedral holds Copernicus’ tomb and a Copernicus museum has been created in the Old Bishops’ Palace.
Then it was on to Zywkowo. It’s a short drive down a narrow road to the village, barely a blip on the map and just a few skips from the Russian frontier. Adam Lopuszynski, 25, and his wife, Alicja, 30, with their 1-year-old daughter, Zuzanna, moved to Zywkowo in search of a quieter life. They are caretakers on the farm bought from the Andrejews in 2005 by the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds. Lopuszynski manages the farm and gives educational programs about storks for visitors. He and his wife also run the society’s guesthouse, a reasonably priced place to stay at roughly US$10 a person a night.
The Andrejews now live just across the lane, and given 24-hours notice will provide meals for visitors. When asked how he became known as the King of Storks, Andrejews shrugged and said, “It’s a long story.” Wine and vodka glasses were refilled, all of it homemade, there were toasts of “na zdrowie” (“to your health”) and the story resumed.
His first platform was a simple construction of makeshift materials. But as he made more of them, they became more sophisticated. Ultimately, he built a stork museum in a shed behind his house, filling it with pictures of storks, memorabilia, articles about Zywkowo and gifts brought by visiting dignitaries.
“Everyone was here except the pope and the president,” he said in Polish, with Lopuszynski an impromptu interpreter.
A small park has been built in the center of the village where there are educational displays about wildlife in the area. From a stork-viewing tower, visitors can look down into nests used year after year. Older nests can reach sizes of up to 9 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter, weighing around 500 pounds.
Storks with their gangly legs and orange beaks pick their way through the fields bordering a nature trail that connects Zywkowo to nearby Toprzyny, another stork village where there are breeding colonies that tend to outnumber people. With wingspans up to 6 feet, they soar over farm fields and glide down to search for insects, frogs, fish and rodents. Aside from a few barking dogs that all know one another and seem to have deep, complicated grievances, there is little but the sound of breeze-ruffled branches and insect chatter.
After one night in Zywkowo, we made our way to Ketrzyn to visit what had been Hitler’s war headquarters on the eastern front. The ruins of the so-called Wolf’s Lair — Wolfsschanze in German — molder in the harsh elements, a creepy collection of vast bunkers and shattered buildings, overgrown with moss and weeds.
As the Red Army advanced, German troops blew up much of the complex, and the haunted ruins now range from piles of stones to nearly intact, often windowless structures covered in graffiti. Hitler spent nearly 800 days in the vast complex where, in 1944, an unsuccessful attempt was made to kill him with a bomb placed under a conference table. The building where the attempt took place is gone; only a plaque denotes the spot.
The former barracks for his Nazi SS guards have been renovated and turned into a suitably drab-looking hotel and restaurant. A self-guided walk is fairly easy, using a map posted near the main entrance, but you will also be approached in the parking lot by fairly persistent guides offering to show you around.
From there we set off to Dwor Pentowo, a farm that has been designated one of 13 European Stork Villages by Euronatur, a German-based organization formed to encourage people to work across borders to protect wildlife in Europe. The drive took us through the heart of the Masurian Lake District, with more than 2,000 postglacial lakes, many connected by rivers and canals, and into Podlaskie province, where authorities have created a “white stork trail” that meanders through four national parks and historic sites in the region.
Pentowo has been in the Toczylowski family for hundreds of years. The manor house where visitors can spend the night dates to 1904. Stork nests are everywhere, including the top of an observation tower. Beyond running educational programs about storks, the family also offers horseback riding.
Near the farm is the small town of Tykocin with a Baroque synagogue that dates from 1642 and is considered one of the finest in Poland. The town had a population of about 5,000 before World War II, evenly split between Christians and Jews. On August 25, 1941, the Nazis made Jewish residents assemble in the market square; then they were taken into the nearby Lopuchowo Forest, where they were shot and left in mass execution pits.
The town, with a Catholic church built in 1750 and historic townhomes on the central square, has never quite recovered. But the synagogue draws a steady stream of visitors and just outside town is a rebuilt castle, Zamek w Tykocin, with rooms, a restaurant and a museum.
It is an easy drive from Tykocin to the information center for Biebrza National Park, a marshy birdwatcher’s paradise, where we met our guide for a daylong tour. Most areas of the park are accessible by car, a little too accessible, said our guide, Katarzyna Ramotowska, of Biebrza Eco-Travel, now that a paved road has been carved through the middle of it. Still, having a guide in the park, which covers about 230 square miles, made finding an array of rare bird and animal species much quicker and easier.
Ramotowska, a naturalist, first took day visitors to a forested peat bog where encroachment and the theft of peat to burn for heat are problems. She fished a dragonfly larva from one bog to demonstrate how it will shed its shell and unfurl its large wings in a few weeks. More than 260 species of birds (including the much rarer black stork) pass through or nest in the park, along with moose, wild boar, beaver and lynx. At a viewing point known for the nearby “happy cows” that swim through the river during the summer to reach pasture, we watched as a gray heron was dive-bombed by lapwings when it got too near their nests. In another area, swans abound and marsh harriers crisscross the sky looking for prey.
“I’ve never had people interested just in storks,” said Lukasz Mazurek, a founder of Wild Poland, which runs tours in the area. “They are so much a part of the Polish landscape, we always see them anyway.”
Mazurek also takes visitors to Bialowieza National Park, just over two hours’ drive from Biebrza. The park is home to the largest herd of European bison and one of the last significant sections of Europe’s primeval forest, which stretches into Belarus. The bison herd is being rebuilt in the park after being hunted to extinction during World War I. Culling from a few dozen bison found in zoos, a herd of some 800 bison has been restored. Guides are required for travel into protected sections of the park.
On the fringes is the park headquarters, which sits on the site of what was once the hunting palace of the Russian czars; a gatehouse is all that remains of the palace. But nearby, the governor’s house overlooking a magnificent lake is a Polish dream of intricate wooden swirls and ornamentation.
There is a limited window to see the storks. In August, thousands of them begin gathering in fields across the Polish landscape for their return flight to Africa. The path takes them south and east, over the Bosporus and across the Middle East, then over Sinai and into Africa. One particularly treacherous spot on their route is Lebanon, where storks are hunted for sport.
But the biggest problems remain at home in Poland, where agribusiness, pesticides and a dwindling natural environment present a greater threat. In a sense, for Poland, they are canaries in the coalmine for the ecosystem.
But, for now, a welcoming habitat still exists, at least in northeast Poland.
Adam Lopuszynski and his family spend the winter in Zywkowo, repairing things on the farm and chopping wood to stay warm. In early spring, a fire truck with a bucket lift will arrive and work will begin to prepare for the storks’ arrival: Debris will be cleaned from nests, new linings of spruce branches and turf applied where necessary and branches cut away to clear paths to nests, with those in danger of falling being removed.
While folk tales have long associated the arrival of babies with storks, the Lopuszynskis will upstage them this year. They are expecting a son, Aleksy, in January. — The New York Times
