Introduction.

I took a city break to Vilnius for some culture with some friends. Before leaving I contacted Jos Stratford for some advice on things to see and where to go and he kindly offered to take me out for the day to see some wildlife.

Saturday 1st December

Arriving late on the Friday night it was straight to the pub for plenty of excellent and cheap beer and an evil spirit called three nines. So with a little bit of a hangover, I ventured out into Vilnius for a tourist day, there was a little wildlife about tree sparrows and a treecreeper of note.

Sunday 2nd December

After an alarm clock malfunction I still managed to meet Jos outside the hotel and we headed off arriving at his land, a flooded woodland paradise just about dawn. After filling the feeders we went for a walk through the wood. We were quickly on to a white backed woodpecker, then a black woodpecker and finally some brief views of a three toed woodpecker. We headed back to the cabin to watch the feeders which now had marsh, Willow, Blue and Great tits a nuthatch and then the woodpeckers started to arrive, great spotted the first, followed by black then white backed which the great spotted took exception to. A grey headed and a lesser spot put in an appearance, the middle spotted also came in but too briefly for a photo. Then the final species three toed - 7 woodpecker species from one spot probably the only place in Europe you can do that. Another walk in the wood followed with the three toed and we flushed some roe deer on the way back to the car. More roe deer as we drove about and a few common species of birds great grey shrike of note on the journey to Kedainiai. Here we were quickly onto a herd of European bison although a little distant we could see several calves in the herd of about 40 or so. It was bitterly cold so we were soon off and stopped for a flock of waxwings and a rough legged buzzard before some forest night driving, despite a good deal of time we could only muster a brown hare for our efforts, and we returned to Vilnius. A big thanks to Jos for all the driving, guiding and sharing some of his stories with me.

Monday 3rd December

A full day in Vilnius, in heavy snow doing some more touristy things, but I did locate a large corvid roost in the town.

Birds 34