Crane Photo-season started!

September 21, 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!