February was cold, March wasn't! The difference, in fact, was little short of spectaular - in the space of just five days, the temperature rose a massive 40 degrees from the low of minus 32 at the end of February to a very respectable plus eight in the first days of March. And that set the scene for the whole month, very mild throughout and lots of migrants - no spectacular rares, but new species almost every day. Cranes, Bitterns, White Storks, Black Storks, they all returned during the month, along with incoming passerines, oodles of waterfowl and, as well as White-tailed Eagles, a few Rough-legged Buzzards and Hen Harriers. Plus, just to end the month, days and days of sun, temperatures rising and plenty of butterflies!

Plunging temperatures, snow and bucketloads of birds at the feeders, all the classic ingredients of a fantastic winter month in Lithuania. Temperatures hit minus 20 early in the month and a chilling minus 32 later on - a surefire way to get bird numbers up! A mid-month census across the four feeding sites suggested almost 1250 birds present, but for sheer wow, little could beat the stunning male White-backed Woodpecker present throughout. Alongside this star, some of the month's other highlights included Grey-headed Woodpeckers increasing to four, Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers doing likewise and the northern Long-tailed Tits reaching nine. Black Woodpeckers and a Goshawk also put in appearances and, no less impressive, Tree Sparrows finally decided the feeders in the new garden were worthy places to dine, even dragging in a House Sparrow on one occasion. Away from the feeders, I did very little birding elsewhere in the country - most of it is frozen and birdless - but I couldn't go without a short mention of the Steller's Eiders in Palanga, Smews in Klaipeda and White-tailed Eagles in Kaunas, all the result of a short trip westward.