Log entries · Klaipėda

A shallow lagoon on one side, the open Baltic on the other, and a notebook in between.

A birdwatching log from the Lithuanian coast: the Curonian Lagoon, Ventė Cape, the flooded Nemunas delta and the grey dunes of the spit.

Ground covered: Lagoon, delta, beach and spit
Written from: Klaipėda, Lithuania
Log kept since: 2022
Sheets filed: 05

The year on this coast

There is no tide here worth the name; the water level is the wind's business, and so is almost everything else. This is the table I keep inside the front cover.

Jan – FebWaterLagoon under ice, lanes openWind that helpsHard north-west, onshoreWhat is movingLong-tailed duck, smew, divers, shore lark

Mar – AprWaterDelta polders floodedWind that helpsWesterly, holding the water backWhat is movingGeese, cranes, ruff, the first black terns

May – JunWaterReed channels, low and warmWind that helpsStill, and before three in the morningWhat is movingBittern, Savi's warbler, spotted crake

Jul – AugWaterOpen lagoon, beaches busyWind that helpsAlmost anything, if you are earlyWhat is movingHoney buzzard, wheatear, red-backed shrike

Sep – OctWaterLagoon open, sea getting upWind that helpsLight easterly under high cloudWhat is movingFinches in thousands, cranes, raptors

Nov – DecWaterFirst ice at the southern endWind that helpsNorth-west, the day after a galeWhat is movingWhooper swan, goldeneye, white-tailed eagle

Log entries

Newest at the top. Each one was written on the spot or in the car, then typed up later with the guesses left in.

24 Aug 2026Sheet 05

The spit

Late August on the spit: the first raptors over the grey dunes

Autumn passage starts earlier than it feels: honey buzzards and harriers over the dune ridge, wheatears on the sand, and how the ferry decides the day.

7 mintyped up 6 Sept 2026

25 Jan 2026Sheet 04

Winter

Winter on the ice edge: long-tailed ducks, smew and a frozen lagoon

What a hard January does to the lagoon and the sea off Klaipėda: where the open water goes, what collects along the edge of the ice, and how to watch it.

8 mintyped up 14 Mar 2026

14 Jun 2025Sheet 03

Reedbeds

Reedbed dawns in the delta: bittern, Savi's warbler and the boat

Three summers of early starts in the delta reedbeds: what sings before four in the morning, how far a bittern carries, and why I stopped using the engine.

6 mintyped up 8 Sept 2025

6 Oct 2024Sheet 02

Migration

Counting the October finch passage at Ventė Cape

How a morning of visible migration is actually counted at the cape: flock size, direction, the three hours that matter, and the totals I no longer trust.

9 mintyped up 18 Feb 2025

18 Apr 2024Sheet 01

Delta

Spring flood in the Nemunas delta: where the water puts the birds

What the April flood does to the delta polders, and how to read the edge of the water for cranes, geese, ruff and the first terns of the year.

7 mintyped up 2 Jun 2024

Standing orders

Four lines written in the front of every notebook

I keep a running log of what turns up on one stretch of the Lithuanian coast, with the wind and the water level written down beside it, so that a season can be compared with the seasons before it instead of with a feeling.

01Write the wind and the water level before you write a bird.
02An estimate is worth more than a number you invented.
03Empty mornings belong in the log as much as good ones do.
04If you are not certain, the bird stays unnamed.