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 By any account, 2007 was an excellent year! With trips to Uganda, Morocco, the Western Sahara and the United States, plus more local forays into Belarus and Poland, it was a grand year for birding adventures. Whether standing looking at Azure Tits in a toilet in the Pripyet Valley, or Great Grey Owls in the deep dark forests nearby, or Shoebills in the Mbamba Swamps or even migrants galore amongst the high-rises of New York, my foreign ventures were marked by their amazing luck and success.
On a local scale too, the year was memorable - not least for the Rollers on my Labanoras land, the Bee-eater that flew over and the arrival of a super White-backed Woodpecker at the feeders, the cream to a haven now boasting seven woodpecker  species! Elsewhere, in a quieter year than most, Baltoji Voke continued to provide the goodies - both Whiskered Terns and Mediterranean Gulls breeding for the first time, a whole bunch of passage Broad-billed Sandpipers and, rolling in as a first for the country, a Bonaparte's Gull in October. However, for all the memories of the year, the event that stood out above all others was the dramatic saga of the stork battles in my garden - the conflict that left two chicks dead and me stunned. Ultimately successful, the story finally ended on a high with the fight and migration of the two remaining chicks ...weeks of care finally paying off! Full stories and pictures, click on any of the months to enter the birding year... 
January. Home and Away, pure quality. February. A mega bevy of peckers! March. Baltic Spring, butterflies and ice. April. Lithuania, Belarus and Poland, good days in all. May. Lithuania, migrants and nestboxes! June. Stunning days, Belarus and Lithuania both! July. Fledglings, butterflies and odonata. August. On the move, storks and waders. September. Autumn dawning. October. Mega-birding, rallies and rares. November. Waxwing Roadshow! December. Back to the Tropics, Ugandan Express. |
With a mad twitch across the continent to see a Wallcreeper in France, a trip also notching up Shore Larks and Snow Buntings, and then an excellent month at my Labanoras feeders, culminating in a mega Pygmy Owl, the birding highlights of the month rather compensated for the weather - the latter a wholly drab affair with very little snow and temperatures rarely much below freezing! Mid-month estimates at the four feeding sites suggested a total of almost 1000 birds present on a daily basis, the bulk being very large numbers of Great Tits and Blue Tits, but alongside these, a male Grey-headed Woodpecker, four Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and an appearance of northern Long-tailed Tits. Black Woodpeckers and a Great Grey Shrike also put in regular appearances. Away from the feeders, also saw several White-tailed Eagles and a couple of Rough-legged Buzzards at Baltoji Voke, plus a very impressive 50 Steller's Eiders at Palanga and flocks of Whooper Swans at Rusne numbering 1280.
Beginning with a couple of days in Entebbe and the Mbamba wetlands, the route first took us northwards to Murchinson Falls, a locality of spectacular birding to the stunning backdrop of the mighty River Nile plunging through a narrow gorge as it empties into a bird-rich delta. With an abundance of mammals and birds, and chimpanzee-filled forests to the south, four days were spent here, before enduring the diabolical road southward to Queen Elizabeth National Park. The drive was well-rewarded, the southern Ishasha sector in particular is amongst the most beautiful localities in Africa I have yet to visit and, camping on the Congolese border, full of birds and mammals. From Queen Elizabeth, it was up into the highlands and to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to the Mountain Gorillas and a potential 350 species of birds. Spending four days in the Buhoma sector of Bwindi, but skipping Ruhizha, it was then a hike back westward towards Kampala, but with a stop over at Lake Mburo, an excellent locality with a range of species, both mammal and bird, not easily found elsewhere in Uganda.
