travel report: Estonia 2026 – three weeks of spectacular lynx sightings

As is tradition, Mark Kaptein is heading to the Estonian countryside with three STARLING groups. It is an excellent location for spotting Eurasian lynx. He takes his groups out day and night. His extensive knowledge of the region and the animals leads him to make wonderful sightings year after year. As always, he is recording his experiences in a travelogue. Join us in enjoying the adventures and photos from Estonia!

A difficult start

Estonia experienced a very cold winter this year, when we arrived in our usual area in late February, it had been consistently below zero for more than 3 months! The landscape was frozen and so was the lynx activity. The locals couldn’t find them and there were few tracks and sightings, in fact nothing moved much except for unusual numbers of moose who had to come out of hiding to find enough food in this barren landscape.

The season started tough, with snow drifts, getting stuck on forest roads and endless hours in the forest with very little wildlife to be seen. We had to gear up and work harder than any other season so far. A network of live camera traps and our ability to spot tracks in the snow while driving at high speed a night proved to be the key to get a bit closer to finding the lynxes. The cold weather had made the lynxes and their prey extremely inactive and we found far less tracks than in previous years. When we did find fresh tracks, we focussed on predicting where the particular animal would go and by doing so, we managed to almost see a lynx during the 3th night of the first trip. It was late and we were on the way back to the hotel when extremely fresh tracks of a small female lynx showed up in the snow. She was hunting a hare and both sets of tracks led us into the hotel garden. The lynx however sneaked away via a small patch of dense forest and we never laid eyes on her.

After this night we got some local info about fresh tracks of a large male lynx in a forest meadow. We predicted where the lynx would show up later that night and we got pretty close, but the roads were bad and full of snow. It wasn’t long before we got seriously stuck. Thanks to our local friends we did get out of the snow after about an hour of digging and we continued the search for this particular lynx. When we checked another forest road we got stuck again…. This was not our evening it seemed and after calling some friends it became clear that we had to wait for at least half an hour before anyone could come and rescue us. While waiting outside and enjoying the beautiful star filled sky, some dogs started barking on a farm nearby. This alerted us that something was around and when switching on the thermal camera, a lynx shaped animal appeared in the forest edge! This is how fast things can change during a safari and we quickly gathered the group to enjoy the big male lynx walking along the forest edge. He eventually sat down on a rock for more than 30minutes! By the time the help arrived to pull us out of the snow, the lynx was still there so our friends got rewarded for helping us with a lynx sighting. This was the first sighting of the season but definitely not the last!

A change of weather and great sightings

At the end of the first week the weather changed and spring started and as predicted, this massively increased wildlife activity in the area and we had two more brief lynx sightings that week. Unfortunately, we saw one of them just in the thermal, while the other one was incredibly shy and ran off before any of the clients could get a good look at it.

The following week our many live camera traps really started to proof their value. We managed to get a great lynx sighting after two nights of searching and from that moment onwards everything changed. Increased activity, good strategic placement of our camera traps, mating season and a bit of luck ensured that we found lynxes almost every single night onwards from this moment! Multiple sightings of young lynxes in an agricultural area resulted in spectacular sightings of multiple hours, during which we could observe the cats live while they were hunting. One of the best sightings of a hunting lynx happened on the night on which the last group arrived.

That night was initially very quiet with hardly any activity. Clear, cold nights are not good for mammal activity and we planned on doing a small loop and an early night since the last group had just arrived. We did a few loops near the hotel and after two hours of driving we had seen nothing except for an unusually large group of eleven roe deer. Because this was the only prey we could find, we figured that IF a lynx was out hunting tonight, it would likely focus on these deer. So just before returning home we checked on the roe deer’s one more time. That is when magic happened, a large cat shaped animal was visible in the thermal camera just a few meters away from the roe deer. All of them were close to the road in a farmer’s field. To not disturb the hunt, we didn’t use the spotlight at first and just waited for the cat to make her move. She charged but missed, after which we could beautifully see her in the spotlight and enjoy her for a few more hours, during which she tried to hunt again.

Another highlight was a young lynx in a field who started to relax and play on a large hay bail. This lynx was so relaxed and stayed around for so long that we eventually decided to leave it so we could still make it to the restaurant in time!

Lynxes and more

Apart from daily lynx sightings, a host of other mammals was present during the trips and we managed to observe moose, raccoon dogs, foxes, wild boars, pine martens, roe deer, mountain hare and American mink on all trips. Some trips were lucky to add otter, weasel and polecat to this list!

Bird wise the year was good with many sightings of pygmy owl, ural owl, white backed woodpecker, grey headed woodpecker, hazel grouse, white tailed eagle and black grouse. All those species were plentiful this year. More difficult were capercaillie but with a lot of effort we managed to get good sightings for most groups.

2026 was a success

The lynx season 2026 has come to an end with 3 satisfied groups, great lynx sightings and many great stories to tell. Additionally, like every year, we have expanded our knowledge on these elusive cats and learned a bit more about their behaviour!

Two lynx tours with Mark will be available online in 2027. Click here for the first tour (27 February – 6 March) and here for the second tour (6 March – 13 March).