Thrilling Birding Tour in Lithuania

You are arriving at Vilnius airport, meeting with your guide, a professional ornithologist. 

Transfer to Birzai – a small town in northern Lithuania, famous for its many traditional recipe beer breweries.

On the way to Birzai, we pass Birvetos fishing ponds and Svyla River meadows, which is on the essential Lithuanian stops for migrating birds. There should be a lot of waders, ducks, and geese.

Full day at Birzai forests, widely recognized as the best place in the Baltic region for watching owls and woodpeckers. 

You will have the possibility to see: White-backed woodpeckers (Dendrocopos Leucotos); Eurasian three-toed woodpecker (Picoides tridaclylus); Grey-headed woodpecker (Picus canus); Blackwoodpeckers (Drycopus Martius); Ural owls (Strix uralensis); Eurasian pygmy owls (Glaucidium passerinum); Black stork (Ciconia nigra). 

Birzai forest is also full of different mammals: Roe deers (Capreolus capreolus); Mooses (Alces alces); Red deers (Cervus elaphus); Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes); Racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides); Badges (Meles Meles); Wolves (Canis Lupus); Eurasian lynx (Lynx Lynx); European pine marten (Martes Martes).

In the evening, we will return to Birzai. Overnight at Birzai.

We will depart to Raseiniai fishing ponds early in the morning. The place is famous for numerous ducks, geese, and representatives of Scolopacidae family species. 

Other species of this area are osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and white-tailed eagles (Haliaetus albicilla). 

In the evening, we will arrive at Vente, a headland in Nemunas Delta. Overnight at Vente.

Morning visit to Ventė Cape Ornithological Station – one of the first bird ringing stations in Europe, still in operation, opened in 1929. Observe the birds’ migration at the Curonian bay.

Closer to the evening, we will drive to the Nemunas Delta Regional Park. If we are lucky, we will hear Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) and watch a greater spotted eagle (Aquila clanga).

And the last stop of the day will be in the fields of Svencele where passerines and geese stay overnight. 

We continue to explore, the Lithuanian birding areas of Nemunas River Delta. The next stop will be unique Rusne island – an island surrounded by bogs and swamps that is between Amata and Skirvytė rivers, which are distributaries of the Nemunas River. Intertwining rivers formed a unique landscape, the delta flood-meadows, and the village of Minija (Mingė)/ Locals call it the Venice of Lithuania.

Enjoy spectacular views of the area from its’ birds watching tower.  After the lunch break, we will drive to Kintai fishing ponds. Transfer to Vente. Overnight at Vente.

Morning transfer by boat from Vente to the Curonian Spit. 

Arrival to the Curonian Spit. We will watch the birds in the center of the village, Nida. Next, we will visit the Lithuanian bird ringing center in Juodkrante village.

We will also stop at the old wood of Juodkrante, the breeding place for common firecrest (Rugulus ignicapila), and will see a colony of great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo).

In the afternoon, we will walk the 1.1 km trail of the Nagliai Nature Reserve. The path will lead you through a mysterious natural phenomenon – dead dunes. Here four former villages were buried in the sand a few centuries ago. Strong winds create a unique landscape – hollows, and washouts, revealing the soil of an ages-old forest buried in the sand.

Overnight at the village of the Curonian spit – Juodkrante resort.

Transfer by ferry from Curonian Spit to Klaipeda. Today we will visit the Kalviai Quarry, famous for numbers of a horned grebe (Podiceps auritus) and a black-necked grebe (Podiceps nigricolis). It is also the only place in Lithuania, where you can find a Mediterranean gull (Larus melanocephalus) breeding.

In the second part of the day, we will travel back to Vilnius.

Day 8. Vilnius – departure transfer

Depending on the flight time, we offer a walking tour in Vilnius Old Town – a stunning UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its winding cobblestone streets, picturesque churches, and historical buildings. The Old Town of Vilnius is one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe.

The end of the tour.