Month: September 2009

Late September and October in the Hortobágy National Park is an action-packed period as the autumn bird migration is in full swing. One of the specialities is the masses of cranes visiting the park. The cranes arrive from mid September onwards and the numbers gradually build up day by day to an impressive 100,000 by the second half of October.

The Crane photography is always special and not many photographers appreciate that the Hortobágy (by far the biggest of the European Crane gathering places) can be as good for crane photography as the well-known Hornboga in Sweden! In fact the variety of subjects is probably wider and ranges from bathing and drinking Cranes to feeding and roosting Cranes.

Sakertour is slowly getting to grips with these subjects and following our first year in 2008 we now have many hides for the various subjects. We use mobile hides for the ever changing drinking and bathing places but we also have permanent hides for flying, feeding and roosting Cranes.

Adult and juvenile Cranes  Photo: János Oláh

The roosting hides are located in a fishpond where the Cranes go to roost every evening. As it is not possible to leave the roost area after dark as sometimes there are Cranes sleeping as close as 15 meters to the hides, we built a sleeping cabin with a capacity for 4 photographers. This way after the photo session they can move to the cabin (heated and comfortable) and then go back to the hides pre-dawn without disturbing the birds. A truly magical experience!

Adult Crane preparing to bath Photo: János Oláh

Please follow the autumn photographer results in our galleries or here on the blog!

More images from the beginning of the Crane Photo-season you can find here:

http://hortobagymadarfoto.wordpress.com/

or in our galleries:

http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=15

http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=16&author=&text=

Sakertour team

We have finished the installation of another superb hide in the Hortobágy National Park. It is a very comfortable multi-functional hide for several target birds. This is in steppe habitat and hopefully will be very active from April to October in future. It is a ´steppe drinking´ hide which will surely increase the photographable species list in the Spring tours! Also can be very productive in the Crane migration time or even for geese.

The first pictures were taken from this hide just recently and our firts guests were there today!

Greyleg Goose Photo: János Oláh

Juvenile Ruff Photo: János Oláh

We will updating our ´hide´ section on the website this winter with more pictures of the hides and also a more accurate species list with when to photograph comments.

We looking forward a very busy autumn with many many visiting birders and photographers but we will continously keep everybody updated about our activity!

Sakertour team

We had a group of friends visiting the Hortobágy National Park led by Lance Degnan and they had two days with Sakertour guides on the 3rd and 4th of September.

They were after not only the special birds of the park but also but some relaxed birding too.

The two days birding yielded a lot of good birds and some great numbers too!

Best sightings:30 Pygmy Cormorants, 3 Black Storks, many Garganeys, Ferruginous Ducks, up to 10 White-tailed Eagles, 7 Short-toed Egales, Montagu´s Harriers, a male Pallid Harrier, Long-legged Buzzard, 20 Red-footed Falcons, Hobby, 3 Sakers, 2 Little Crakes, 1500 Common Cranes, 11 Great Bustard, 6 Stone-curlews, 37 Dotterels, Curlew Sandpipers, 30 Long-eared Owls, 3 Hoopoes, many Bee-eaters, 5 Rollers, 20+ Tawny Pipits, 3 Lesser Grey Shrikes and 5 Golden Orioles.

A fantastic experience indeed!

Long-eared Owls Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team