Lithuania 27 th April 1 st May 2016 Introduction This was a last minute birding trip to Lithuania, a country which I have never visited. Investigation of trip reports on the internet revealed a limited amount of information, especially in relation to site specifics. However, the location of the country along the Baltic coast and variety of habitats present results in an excellent avifauna. The plan for the trip was to travel from Vilnius to Klaipeda on the Baltic Coast, followed by visits to Kuronia Spit, Kuronia Lagoon (Figure 1) and the Numenos Delta. I only had five days in total including getting to and from the UK - looking back I could easily have spent two or three more days in the Numenos Delta. Figure 1: Kuronia Lagoon at sunset April 2016 Literature Along with a small number of the trip reports already posted on Cloudbirder (http://www.cloudbirders.com/tripreport), I also made use of the following books: Gorman, G. (2006) Birding in Eastern Europe. Wildsounds, Norfolk Castrén, K. (2014) Birds of the Curonian Spit. Petro Ofsetas, Vilnius Maps and Navigation I had a road map of Lithuania but didn t use this in the end, but rather relied on a combination of a TomTom Sat Nav and open access aerial photographs downloaded to the Viewranger App on an iphone (http://www.viewranger.com/en-gb, also available on Android). Viewranger uses GPS to pinpoint your location without the use of a phone signal and is extremely useful abroad. It was necessary to download the aerial photography in the UK given the cost of using data abroad and limitations of hostel wifi. Logistics Flights were from Luton to Vilnius with Ryanair (outbound) and Wizz Air (inbound), these were chosen to maximise the amount of time available for birding. Both flights were on time and extremely cheap ( 90 return). I hired a car with Hertz ( 70) which turned out to be a brand new Toyota Yaris with only 19km on the clock. Roads were good throughout the country and mostly very quiet. Woodland tracks were gravel in varying state of repair. None of the roads that I used would need anything more than a normal saloon although visiting any earlier (more rain etc.) might require a 4x4 in places.
Accommodation was a combination of two nights in Linterp Guesthouse in Klaipeda ( 14/night) and two nights in an AirBNB apartment in Vente ( 30/night). These locations were chosen to allow me to visit both Kuronian Spit and the Numenos Delta, both located along the Baltic coast close to Kaliningrad. An overview of Lithuania is show below (Figure 2). Figure 2: Lithuania with pin showing Klaipeda Day 1-27 th April My flight from Luton was at 06:40 and left on time, arriving in Vilnius at 11:20. Three white stork that had to take evasive action to miss the wing of the plane were the first species of the trip. Picking up the car went without a hitch and I was quickly heading up the A1 motorway towards Klaipeda. Just to the north of Kaunas I spent a couple of hours exploring Babtu Forest (also called Babtai on signs). This forest supports a variety of species including white-backed woodpecker. It was the middle of the afternoon by this point and relatively quiet in the woodland although I did manage to see black woodpecker, common common crane, pied flycatcher, lesser spotted eagle and many singing wood warbler amongst a variety of other species. Farmland in the area held lapwing, whinchat and yellow wagtail. Babtu Forest is easily accessible off the A1, the red line on Figure 3 shows the route which I took through the area. This route travels along woodland and farmland gravel tracks that were in good condition on my visit. I got back onto the A1 via the A8 but would have liked to have spent a few more hours here, especially early morning. Figure 3: Babtu Forest Driving Route The rest of the trip to Klaipeda was uneventful apart from a roadside stop for a strong coffee. I arrived at 17:30 and headed straight for the northern edge of the town where the entrance of Klaipeda
Lagoon meets the Baltic. A large groyne in this location allowed a good vantage point. It was relatively quiet with a single black tern, 15 little gull, 25+ common tern, two arctic tern, 30+ common gull, 15 common scoter and a black-throated diver. Other species in the area included black redstart singing from local buildings and mute swan which apparently feed on herring eggs laid on the rocks in the area. A single grey seal was recorded offshore. Around 19:30 it started to rain heavily and I headed off to check in at the guest house. Day 2-28 th April I was up at 04:30 to get the 05:40 car ferry over to Kuronia Spit ( 8.50 return from the new port ), much of the spit is a National Park with an entrance fee this is dependent on season and goes up quite dramatically during the summer months. The spit is a combination of woodland, sandunes and aquatic habitats. It known primarily as a autumn migration site, at which time thousands of birds are funnels down the spit as they head south. Spring passage here seems to be less well pronounced. It was still raining heavily and the forecast was for heavy rain with an onshore wind for much of the morning. I decided to head down to the Baltic coast opposite Nida to attempt some seawatching. I found a sheltered spot with parking close to the beach (Lat: 55.324454, Long: 20.992915). A scan across the water revealed large numbers of long-tailed duck the majority of which seemed to be heading north. I m not sure whether this was genuine movement or just birds that would usually be feeding further offshore being pushed closer to the beach. Approximately 1200 long-tailed duck passed in around 3 hours, quite a sight given that they were virtually all in full summer plumage. Other ducks included 18 velvet scoter, 14 common scoter, five goldeneye, 24 shoveler, 13 teal, four tufted duck, three wigeon and a single female smew in with a flock of long-tailed duck. A small number of other species were recorded including one red-throated diver, two sandwich tern, one common gull and four black-headed gull. It was extremely cold by this point so I packed in the seawatching and headed over to Nida. This is a lovely fishing villag on the eastern shore of Kuronia Lagoon. The harbour and surrounds held a small number of species including six common sandpiper, forty great black-backed gull, lesser whitethroat, black redstart, common redstart and brambling. It was 11:00 by this point and I decided to head up to the Sundial Watchpoint (Lat: 55.294995, Long: 20.990399) to the south-west of Nida. There was still light rain at this point with a westerly breeze. Setting up my telescope a group of fieldfare headed north and groups of siskin could be heard calling high in the gloom. Over the next couple of hours there was a steady flow of birds heading north, not in unbelievable numbers but enough to keep me more than interested! Although there was a westerly breeze it seemed that much of the movement was along the eastern side of the spit, and looking through my scope towards the Baltic would reveal flocks of birds heading north. The following were recorded migrating north 95 siskin, 105 fieldfare, 65 redwing, 130 woodpigeon, 170 chaffinch, four redpoll, 15 meadow pipit, two tree pipit, four linnet, one crossbill, one brambling, one hawfinch, one ring ouzel, two sparrowhawk, one ringtail hen harrier and one kestrel. Woodlark were singing non-stop in the area, a peregrine headed south, presumably a local bird, and a white-tailed eagle was looking glum on one of the sand dunes. The views across the dunes towards Kaliningrad were spectacular. The passage began to tail off and I headed slowly back along north along the spit, little of interest was seen along the route. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the spits northern tip at Koagalis (Lat: (55.719336, Long: 21.099501). By this time the sun had come out and there was a light south-west wind. A pair of adult yellow-legged gull were present on the dock as I got out of the car and the beach on the tip of the spit held a feeding group of gulls including a fuscus lesser black-backed gull and Caspian gull. A small group of whimbrel passed, and the bushes head small parties of blue tit, six of which spiralled up and headed north across the sea. There were more singing woodlark and wood warbler plus fifty song thrush scattered around the woodland. In the early evening I caught the boat back to the mainland to get some dinner and pack for the trip down the coast. Day 3 29 th April I was out of the hostel by 04:45 and headed towards a possible route along the western shore of Curonia Lagoon which I had identified the night before. Information about how best to bird this area is rather scarce, indeed one other trip report suggests that they could not find any roads that led to good birding spots in this area. I headed towards the southern edge of Klapedia where a track on aerial photography looked a good bet for heading along the edge of the lagoon (Lat: 55.643091, Long: 21.170697). The track passed along the eastern edge of long canal which appeared to have decent habitat in the surrounds. After around ½ hour I stopped adjacent to a reed fringed canal offshoot and
took a walk into the surrounding area, the sun was just starting to come up and I could hear the calls of common crane reverberating around the landscape. Savi s warbler were singing in the reeds and seeing one reeling in the early morning sun was amazing. Other species here included reed warbler, water rail, cuckoo, mealy redpoll, green sandpiper, displaying snipe and a variety of commoner species. The track re-entered tarmac roads around the village of Klisiai. Having taken a few dead end route to the coast I spotted a brand new observation tower in the village of Dreverna (Lat: 55.516109, Long: 21.234190). The tower gave wonderful views over the Curonia Lagoon (Figure 4). Over the course of a few hours the following were recorded, eleven Bewick s swan, two garganey, 3 bearded tit, singing great reed warbler, 200+ little gull calling and displaying, greenshank, large flock of ruff, 700+ common gull, Caspian tern, hoopoe, sedge warbler, three greylag goose, three common crane, two marsh harrier, yellow wagtail and common tern. I was slightly taken aback by the numbers of ruff flying around, and some scanning revealed a distant field that was a moving mass of ruff (and likely other species), a rough estimate indicated that there were between 700-1000 ruff present. Quite a sight! Figure 4: Kuronia Lagoon from Dreverna observation tower I decided to try and get a closer look at the field in question by driving back north, however the roads closest to the location were private preventing access. Another flooded field close by did hold two black-tailed godwit, a curlew, snipe and over 25 greenshank. Another hoopoe flew past as I was leaving. Heading south again I stopped in a village to pick up some supplies, a serin was singing in the trees which turned out to be my only sighting of this species during the trip. A small roadside pool just to the north of Vente held fifteen wood sandpiper, two marsh sandpiper (Figure 5), greenshank, redshank, wigeon and grey heron. Common crane were displaying in the surrounding farmland. Figure 5: Marsh sandpiper record shot
I got to the bird observatory at Vente around 12:00, all was very quiet although the enormous heligoland traps were still open and mist nets unfurled. Two goosander drifted past as I had lunch and fifteen great white egret were in the reeds, white-tailed eagle passed occasionally. I was due to pick up the key to my apartment in Vente at 15:00 so headed over to Kontai Fish Ponds (Lat: 55.402441, Long: 21.280475) on the edge of Minija. It was rather warm by this point which seem to have encouraged a large number of white-tailed eagle to take advantage of the thermals. I have never seen such a large concentration of this species, at one point I could see 11 birds in the air and four sat in a tree. Two of the fish ponds were drained and these areas held one grey plover, 13 ringed plover, one spotted redshank, five greenshank and fifteen ruff. One of the larger lakes contained wildfowl including 150 white-fronted goose, 20 tundra bean goose, ten gadwall, ten tufted duck, many shoveler and two pintail. I picked up the apartment key from Monika who gave me an excellent map of the Numenos Delta with walking and driving routes, watchtowers and more. Monika also knew of other watchtowers that weren t on the map. The accommodation consisted of four apartments all with kitchens and bathrooms with a large communal area and kitchen downstairs (see here for more details: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/12128589?s=nbxkg-gq). I made dinner and headed out again. This time to a heathland raised bog with associated boardwalk at Pelke Aukstumala (Lat: 55.395939, Long: 21.365232), it was still quite warm and the heathland was rather quiet. However I did see a great grey shrike, tree pipit and the northern race of longtailed tit beautiful! There were lots of moose droppings around but unfortunately no moose. I drove around the northern area of the Numenos Delta stopping at the large Kroku Lake where there were around 200 tufted duck and a variety of other duck species but nothing unusual. The rest of the evening was spent at a watch tower to the west of Minija (Lat: 55.367980, Long: 21.251700). From here I had absolutely amazing views of a beaver swimming about. It was slapping its tail on the water occasionally - I m not sure of the function of this behaviour. There was also a musk rat in the reeds in the same area. Bird wise there were Savi s warbler reeling, bittern booming, a male Montagu s harrier drifted by and summer plumage black-tailed godwit were in the surrounding fields. Fifteen great white egret, 35 great crested grebe, six goldeneye, fieldfare and white wagtail were also present. Day 4 30 th April I awoke at 04:00 and opened the window to hear two thrush nightingale singing in the garden and bittern booming in the distance. My plan for the day was to bird the island of Rusne in the far southern area of delta. It was extremely misty as I drove through the dark. The far north-western end of Rusne Island was a combination of flooded watermeadows, reedbeds and patchy woodland (Figure 6, Lat: 55.335451, Long: 21.263609). Bittern, great reed warbler and bearded tit were in the reeds. The woodland contained a large number of blackcap, singing wood warbler, thrush nightingale, lesser whitethroat amongst more common species. Forty summer plumaged little gull headed up the Rusne River and marsh harrier were quartering over the area. Figure 6: Numenos Delta at dawn
On the way to a watchtower a wagtail flew off the road which looked suspiciously like a citrine. I got out of the car but could see no further sign of the bird nightmare! The watchtower looked over a large area of reedbed and into the Curonian Lagoon, there were three Bewick s swan on the lagoon and Savi s warbler reeling everywhere amongst a variety of other species. Hopefully scoping the area where the possible citrine wagtail had been seen revealed a bright yellow blob sat on a bale of hay. I drove back and got some great views of a pair of citrine wagtail in full summer plumage. My photograph below really doesn t do it justice! Figure 7: Citrine wagtail record shot The water meadows in this area contained phenomenal numbers of breeding skylark, meadow pipit and yellow wagtail with smaller numbers of whinchat and wheatear. I drove back towards the fishponds on the northern edge of Rusne Island stopping the car after hearing a grasshopper warbler singing from the roadside. The bird was sitting out in the open and gave great views. The fishponds weren t accessible by car but the owner allowed me to walk around. There were some great birds here including ten black tern, one whiskered tern, one little tern, a summer plumage Slavonian grebe, 100 white-fronted goose flew over with a bar-headed goose. It seemed that every bush contained a great reed warbler and there were tree sparrow around one of the buildings. Given the time of year the marsh terns were just the forerunners of a more substantial arrival that hadn t yet occurred. I stopped at a nice spot next to a river on Rusne Island for lunch. A lesser spotted woodpecker was drumming in the riverside trees and a wryneck gave excellent views as it called some low scrub. I drove off Rusne Island and over to the area around Sausgalviai south of Silutes (Lat: 55.285038, Long: 21.461020). The flooded fields in the area contained the last remnants of wintering geese including around 2000 white-fronted geese, 200 tundra bean goose, two taiga bean goose, 100 barnacle goose, one whooper swan and numerous ducks. There were many waders too, but the long grass prevented a good assessment of numbers. Montagu s harrier quartered over the grassland, a peregrine spooked everything and white-tailed eagles were soaring. At one point the geese flew low overhead, an amazing spectacle! This probably gives a taste of what the area is like in the winter and early spring. I met two friendly Lithuanian birdwatchers who were surprised to see an English birder, they were extremely helpful in providing information on a good location to see whitebacked woodpecker. I drove half an hour east of Silutes to a mixed woodland near Dinkiai (Lat: 55.180122, Long: 21.877770). This area held some species that I hadn t seen yet including treecreeper, nuthatch, marsh tit and best of all a middle spotted woodpecker at a nest hole. There was also an interesting derelict house in this area with a small graveyard. The gravestones had people with some Germanic names suggesting that the house dated from when the area was under the control of Germany as part of Prussia. Driving out of the woodland I saw a couple of mistle thrush and a soaring red kite.
Figure 8: Dinkiai Forest, location of middle spotted woodpecker nest It was getting quite late so I headed back to Kontai Fishponds for a quick look at the waders. Species seen in addition to my previous visit included 90 dunlin, two little ringed plover and ten Caspian gull. Day 5 1 st May Up at 04:00 again, I drove back down the A1 towards Kaunas to find the area where the Lithuania birders had said there was a good chance of seeing white-backed woodpecker. Arrived in the woodland at 07:30 and quickly found the area denoted by a sign showing white-backed and threetoed woodpecker (Lat: 54.934667, Long: 24.256997). The habitat was a mix of coniferous woodland along with some more interesting looking alder carr with much deadwood. Unfortunately it was raining heavily and not great for birdwatching. By 08:30 it had eased a bit and birds started to reveal themselves. First a pair of bullfinch of the northern race, two drumming great spotted woodpecker, a single black woodpecker, two hawfinch, nuthatch, displaying green sandpiper and common crane. A variety of other species were also present including my only dunnock and turtle dove of the trip. I heard a distant woodpecker drumming that sounded like a white-backed by despite searching could no relocate the bird. Figure 9: Papio Lake
Deciding that it wasn t going to be my day I headed on toward Vilnius, skirting the city I made a stop at Papio Lake (Figure 9). According to the guidebooks there is a watchtower here although I was unable to find it. I did manage to find a route onto the edge of the lake which provided great views. The lake was alive with birds including fifteen pochard, twenty tufted duck, garganey, three whooper swan, summer plumage black-necked grebe, fifty black tern, two white-winged black tern, savi s warbler, bearded tit, four coot, forty little gull, three goldeneye, great crested grebe. In the surrounding abandoned farmland there were singing whinchat, a flyover golden oriole and redstart. My flight left from Vilnius on time and I was back in a traffic jam on the M25 by 20:30. sa.boswell@btinternet.com
Systematic List 1 Mute swan 2 Whooper swan 3 Bewick s swan 4 White-fronted goose 5 Taiga bean goose 6 Tundra bean goose 7 Greylag goose 8 Barnacle goose 9 Bar-headed goose 10 Shelduck 11 Mallard 12 Gadwall 13 Pintail 14 Shoveler 15 Wigeon 16 Teal 17 Garganey 18 Tufted duck 19 Pochard 20 Common scoter 21 Velvet scoter 22 Long-tailed duck 23 Goldeneye 24 Smew 25 Goosander 26 Red-throated diver 27 Black-throated diver 28 Slavonian grebe 29 Black-necked grebe 30 Great crested grebe 31 Cormorant 32 Bittern 33 Great white egret 34 Grey heron 35 White stork 36 White-tailed eagle 37 Lesser spotted eagle 38 Red kite 39 Marsh harrier 40 Hen harrier 41 Montagu s harrier 42 Common buzzard 43 Sparrowhawk 44 Kestrel 45 Peregrine 46 Water rail 47 Coot 48 Common crane 49 Oystercatcher 50 Little ringed plover 51 Ringed plover 52 Grey plover 53 Lapwing 54 Ruff 55 Dunlin 56 Wood sandpiper 57 Green sandpiper 58 Common sandpiper 59 Redshank 60 Greenshank 61 Marsh sandpiper 62 Black-tailed godwit 63 Curlew 64 Whimbrel 65 Snipe 66 Black-headed gull 67 Little gull 68 Common gull 69 Yellow-legged gull 70 Caspian gull 71 Lesser black-backed gull 72 Great black-backed gull 73 Little tern 74 Sandwich tern 75 Common tern 76 Arctic tern 77 Caspian tern 78 Black tern 79 Whiskered tern 80 White-winged black tern 81 Feral pigeon 82 Stock dove 83 Woodpigeon 84 Turtle dove 85 Cuckoo 86 Hoopoe 87 Black woodpecker 88 Lesser spotted woodpecker 89 Middle spotted woodpecker 90 Great spotted woodpecker 91 Wryneck
92 Skylark 93 Woodlark 94 House martin 95 Swallow 96 Meadow pipit 97 Tree pipit 98 White wagtail 99 Yellow wagtail 100 Citrine wagtail 101 Wren 102 Dunnock 103 Robin 104 Thrush nightingale 105 Black redstart 106 Redstart 107 Whinchat 108 Song thrush 109 Redwing 110 Fieldfare 111 Mistle thrush 112 Blackbird 113 Ring ouzel 114 Wheatear 115 Blackcap 116 Whitethroat 117 Lesser whitethroat 118 Sedge warbler 119 Reed warbler 120 Great reed warbler 121 Grasshopper warbler 122 Savi s warbler 123 Wood warbler 124 Chiffchaff 125 Willow warbler 126 Goldcrest 127 Pied flycatcher 128 Great tit 129 Coal tit 130 Blue tit 131 Marsh tit 132 Long-tailed tit 133 Bearded tit 134 Nuthatch 135 Great grey shrike 136 Magpie 137 Jay 138 Jackdaw 139 Rook 140 Hooded crow 141 Raven 142 Starling 143 Golden oriole 144 House sparrow 145 Tree sparrow 146 Chaffinch 147 Brambling 148 Linnet 149 Mealy redpoll 150 Siskin 151 Goldfinch 152 Greenfinch 153 Serin 154 Bullfinch 155 Hawfinch 156 Crossbill 157 Reed bunting 158 Yellowhammer Mammals 1 Beaver 2 Hare 3 Musk rat 4 Fox 5 Roe deer 6 Moose (droppings) 7 Badger (sett) 8 Grey seal