Cranes in the forest

Some memories from Kaszuby, Poland

Zuzanna Żak
2 min readJun 4, 2024

It’s been almost a year since I returned from Ostoja, and it’s only now that I finished reviewing some of the recordings I made there.

Photo by Mohamed Fsili on Unsplash

Compared to other places, I wasn’t recording much there, partly because I was busy with my squirrel-feeding schedule, and partly due to terrain not being friendly enough to record.

I usually record by the water. Water transfers the sounds better, and every bird swimming or hiding in the reed can be heard. This also means that if someone decides to mow their lawn super early I will also hear the result of their questionable choices, but it’s still worth sitting by the water.

Near Ostoja, all ponds and lakes in the forest are either too far for me to travel there in the middle of the night, overgrown with reeds and trees, or are very small backyard ponds.

Still, I recorded some bird sounds, and a part of them is now live in the form of By the garden pond set — and I can use it to prepare for another volunteering trip to Ostoja next month.

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Zuzanna Żak

Field recordist, bird song participant, early morning enjoyer. Use my 🦆 recordings:https://www.pond5.com/artist/ZuzannaZak