Destinations
2025
- Morocco
- Extremadura
- Crete
- Menorca (April)
- Lesvos
- South of Salamanca
- Picos de Europa
- Algarve & Alentejo
- The Gambia
2026
... where there are many holiday photos to enjoy.
The air holidays shown are ATOL Protected by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 3253. ATOL Protection extends primarily to customers who book and pay in the United Kingdom. Click on the ATOL logo if you want to know more.
Białowieża forest
Here are a few photos from the celebrated primeval forest of Białowieża in Poland, which I visited on a recce visit (in September 2009).
You have to be with an official local guide - I was with Mateusz Szymura, as well as Honeyguide leader Artur Wiatr. The entrance to the strictly protected part of Białowieża National Park is simple but elegant.
Forget living trees for a moment. The key component of Białowieża National Park is the volume of dead wood, fallen and standing.
The tree species are largely familiar to a naturalist from the UK, though the mix of deciduous and evergreen is interesting. We noted large-leaved lime, spruce, ‘English’ oak, hornbeam, alder, hazel, silver birch, wych elm, Scots pine and Norway maple.
Large-leaved lime and forest guide Mateusz Szymura
All the fallen timber makes the forest look 'untidy' compared with a managed woodland. Wild boar rootings add to this effect. Untidy, of course = good for wildlife.
A boardwalk helps to protect a wet area and allows easy access.
Spruce attracts three-toed woodpeckers, one of eight woodpecker species, including white-backed and middle spotted. I must visit in spring one year!
Big though the strictly protected part is - 100 square kilometres - the bulk of Białowieża forest is 'managed', i.e. timber extracted, and a vigorous debate continues about extending the National Park boundaries.
That wider area of forest includes a superb patch of flooded woodland pictured, right: there are more pictures on our beavers web page.
Chris Durdin, October 2009
Back to Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Honeyguide nature notes
Click here for the Białowieża National Park website
Guardian article on Białowieża here, April 2011.
Some tourists go round by horse and cart - the main tracks are wide enough. Fun, but rather limiting for nature study.
The sheer size of many trees is impressive. Scots pine above, oak below. 
Note the dead branches at the top of this oak, and the dead tree leaning against it.
If it falls, unless it blocks a main path, it's left.
A huge wych elm, if I remember rightly.
More fallen timber. You get the theme!
This flooded woodland area lies to the north of the strictly protected forest.
