For several years I was on the Executive Committee of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research and attended their annual meetings in my role as President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS). When meeting in non-UK locations I would often spend some time birding if there were good habits close to the meeting venue. In 2016 the SCOR Annual Meeting was held in Sopot, Poland, which is a seaside resort on the Baltic coast some 12 km northwest of Gdansk and I spent several days there during their September meeting.
I travelled to Sopot via a Wizz Air flight to Gdansk and then took a taxi to the Hotel Haffner, where the Executive members were staying. This was a very nice hotel and only a few hundred metres from the sea.
During my free time the weather was a bit variable and with no transport I had to make do with birding around the city. I could only carry a small pocket camera so the photo opportunities were very limited. Being not far from the UK and, as I was restricted to a city environment, many of the birds I saw were very familiar, with only the Hooded Crow being uncommon in southern England. Beyond that I saw White Wagtail, Barn Swallow and Great Cormorant on the ocean.
Once the meeting at the Institute of Oceanology was finished we had a short excursion to the historic city of Gdansk to the east of Sopot. Although 90% of the city centre was destroyed during the Second World War, the old centre has been painstakingly rebuilt and is very impressive.
