Latvia, October 4th-5th 2025
I have been to Latvia before but only at night. Birds, zero, and I had been meaning to sort this out for a while. A trip planned for May fell through so when I found a cheap flight in October I decided to go for it even though I felt spring would have been rather better. Indeed it likely would have been, my visit coincided with some awkward weather which made birding very hard but I made the best of it and still came away with a reasonable list of birds seen. Once you leave Riga you are very quickly into wonderful rural habitat, low intervention agriculture, if any, and a lot of lovely forest and wild coastline. With only a day and a half, and with migration in mind, I concentrated my efforts on Cape Kolka at the very tip of the westernmost part of the country. What could I see?
Logistics
- A weekend trip in early October.
- Flights: from Heathrow to Riga on British Airways on Saturday morning. This gets you in just after lunch so there was sufficient time to bird my way up the coast to Cape Kolka. On Sunday the flight home left at 9pm so I had the whole day.
- Car Hire: A semi decent car from Avis did not cost a great deal on top of the flight. I think all in it was about £200 for the flight + car.
- Driving: Simple and straightforward, although some roads are a bit knackered and once you get off the beaten track they are largely unpaved.
- Weather: A right pain in the backside! A southerly gale complete with copious rain made birding virtually impossible in all but the most sheltered spots for a large part of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, whilst also killing migration as birds presumably waited in Estonia instead of crossing the Gulf of Riga.
- Accommodation: An absurdly rustic and bizarre place in Dundaga, about half an hour south of Kolka . I would have stayed at the Cape but by the time I had decided where I would be going there was nowhere left that was reasonably priced. It was awkwardly cash only (I didn't have any) and for various reasons is hard to recommend! Rather than a kitchen it had a simple camp stove and electrics that would make any qualified person in the UK shudder. It made me, wholly unqualified, very nervous, but I had to deal with it as I could not find anywhere to eat out. Luckily the village had a good supermarket otherwise I would have been really stuck.
- Food: There seem to be small supermarkets everywhere, but restaurants in the countryside are few and far between.
- Optics: Scope and tripod for looking out to sea at Cape Kolka. I did take my camera but I barely used it due to the conditions.
- Literature: eBird of course.
Itinerary
Saturday: A tolerably early flight from London arrived early afternoon after which I birded north towards Kolka. Stops made at Lake Kanieris and Mesrags before getting to Kolka at about 6pm. Overnight at Dundaga which is about 30 minutes from Kolka.Sunday: Early start to get back to Kolka at first light, but the seawatch and birding in general was rather trying in the blustery conditions. I came away by early afternoon and birded my way back to Riga along the coast.
