The trees, flowers, birds and sea look the same on both sides of the border, but it certainly takes some effort to get to the Russian side. Now I am at the Rybachy Biological Research Station, one of the oldest and best-known ornithological laboratories in the world.

It is about a 4-hour drive from Vilnius to Klaipėda, on a fast highway that directly crosses the country. Then it is a short boat ride to Neringa and the Kuršių Nerijos national park. Another 40 minutes south past Lithuanian resort villages gets us to the Russian border. I had the visa so that was no problem, but for some unexplained reason, they seem to hold Lithuanian cars at the border. One Lithuanian guy was there already for 4 hours, and he had once been held up for 22 hours. He said that the Latvian and Polish cars have no problems getting through, and he blamed it on the Lithuanian president Grybauskaitė, who has soured relations between the two countries. We waited about 2 hours before they finally, unexplainably, let us through. In the meantime, I started taking some photos, and one guard was certainly happy to let me take photos of Audrey, the patrol dog. But another border guard was not so supportive of my photo essay, and made me erase my pictures. I erased one, but not all of them, and he was fine with that. The laws all seem very arbitrary. So here are some rare photos of the border between Lithuania and Russia on the Curonian Spit.

The nature is beautiful on this strip of land sandwiched between the waters of the Baltic Sea. Pine trees and sand dunes, spring flowers and specks of amber next to the shells on the beach.

This morning I got to witness a project studying Pied flycatchers and their nest boxes. Scientists have long term tracking data of these birds, and also their blood parasites, like malaria. The station is famous for its huge Rybachy traps, where the birds fly into a huge net and are funneled into a small opening at the end. They catch and band up to 100,000 birds some years.

A birthday party in Russia: lots of food on the table, much of it that we brought from Lithuania. Friendly warm spirited toasts in Russian around the table, and I learned that the third toast is to the parents, for creating the person we celebrate. Generous friendly happy scientists in Russia welcome me as if I belong here and should plan to work here for many more years.