Birding Lithuania and Poland

In the period from 24 until 30 May 2004 we visited southern Lithuania and northeastern Poland to watch birds. Birders in action were Arild Breistøl, Göran Högstedt and myself.
  • First species: House-Martin, Vilniaus Airport, Lithuania 24 May.
  • 146 species observed. 129 in Lithuania and 101 in Poland. 
  • Top five highlights: Lesser Spotted Eagle, Whiskered Tern, Middle-spotted Woodpecker, Collared Flycatcher and Ortolan Bunting.
  • Most unexpected records: Ruddy Turnstone (inland) and Caspian Gull.
  • Top five wanted, but did not see: Black Stork, Eurasian Roller, Three-toed Woodpecker, Greenish Warbler and Aquatic Warbler.
  • Number of storks during the trip: about 300 individuals and 197 occupied nests. 140 of the latter in Lithuania and 57 in Poland.
  • Biggest party of a single species: 300+ Rooks in a colony near Skindzirez, Poland 26 May.
  • Last addition: Grey Wagtail, Ventes Ragas, Lithuania 30 May.
Day by day web-logging
Blogging was still an unfamiliar concept in 2004, and Wi-Fi wasn't anything you could expect anywhere. We planned to do daily updates from the trip on the web via a cell-phone connection. It turned out to be difficult, because of bad cell-phone coverage in most visited areas. We had pre-designed a template that was intended for day to day updates on the web during our trip, but only the first two days were actually posted real time.
Species lists
A total of 146 species were observed during the trip. Countrywise, 129 in Lithuania and 101 in Poland. Both lists are embedded below. All observations during the trip have been entered into the eBird database.