After another excellent night at Regina hotel in Druskininkai, we did some post-breakfast birding in the green patch behind the hotel. Several Wrynecks, a Serin, Wood Warbler and a Common Redstart were the stars of the early morning birding. At 14:00 we headed towards Poland, and by then we had found several new species for the trip near Druskininkai: Wood Sandpiper, Gadwall, Shoveler, Eurasian Teal, Whooper Swan and Hen Harrier.
Crossing the Polish border wasn't too bad, but it took some time. The Poles were just about to enter the European Union at the time, so I guess they aquired new routines on border-controls, especially at non EU member borders like Lithuania.
One out of four singing Ortolan Buntings just south of Augustow 26 May 2004.
The landscape changed dramatically once inside Poland. All the nice small patches of agriculture, woodland, fields, storks and bird varieties suddenly disappeared. Now we were in the middle of uniform fields as far as the eye could see. Depressing. A Kestrel and Buzzard here and there was just about the birds we saw, until we past Augustow.
As usual we stopped at visually nice birding sites, and at the first stop after Augustow we were surprised to find four singing Ortolan Buntings. The species has big problems in Norway, and is on the brink of extinction. Apparently they are more common in these areas, but I suspect they are having a hard time here as well. We recorded three more singing males before we reached the Bialowieska forest in the evening. During the trip Grey-headed Woodpecker and Common Crane were the only new adds to the species list.
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