Biking to a Bird Paradise Just Outside Warsaw
A quiet refuge for animals and humans alike
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Almost blinded by the setting sun, bathed in rivers of sweat trickling down more than just my spine, with a zillion horseflies already piercing through my clothes, I hear a hornet’s dreaded bass buzz.
‘Not this,’ I sigh.
Looking up from the barely visible path, I see the hornet flying here and there around the dead tree I have to go around to climb the steep bank that borders on the swamp.
I know that, unlike me, it’s probably not alone. Its mates must be hiding somewhere out of sight, I’ve seen them nest in such trees many a time.
A movie flashes at the back of my mind, featuring a swarm of hornets suddenly deciding that this sweaty human grappling with a pile of metal is a deadly threat to their homestead…
‘Biker found dead from hornet bites’, I see the headlines of local news portals in a few days’ time…
So instead of stopping to turn back and take in the gold-dotted sea of green that fills the little valley I’ve just tackled, I grab my bike and, putting one foot above the other, drag myself up to safety.
