Year: 2011

We are continuously uploading the changes on our website in January 2012. Our Danube Delta operation will start in full swing. You will find more birding and photo tours, more hides and more information! We plan to have all up-dates online by the end of January.

Juvenile White-tailed Eagle in dawn light                                                        Photo: Csaba Lóki

Unfortunately after 3 years we had to amend our prices according to increased petrol and service prices. You can find our new prices on the website. ALL booking made in 2011 will not be effected by the price change!

Adult Sparrowhawk                                                                           Photo: Johannes Ferdinand

We wish you all a successful and bird-filled New Year!

Sakertour team

Our partner Wild Images had his first ´eagle tour´ of the 2011/2012 season from 9-13 December. You can find more info and dates of their second tour in February here. Although the weather was not wintry at all with daytime temperature up to 11C the activity was good. Partly because of the mild weather there are still hordes of geese in the Hortobágy region and the eagles are a little bit unpredictable at the hides. All the hides have regular eagle visitors but one day can be very different from another. It is easy to get no eagles one day and then several the next day at the same spot. Tour participants had a special last day with 11 White-tailed Eagles around them for hours!

White-tailed Eagles                                                                             Photo: Pauline Thompson

Juvenile White-tailed Eagle                                                                            Photo: James Brier

Adult White-tailed Eagle                                                                      Photo: Pauline Thompson

We still have not received any images from our French partners but hopefully they will come soon as well and we add a few eagle images to the galleries!

Sakertour team

Sakertour is committed to nature conservation and we yearly dispose several nest boxes for owls. This winter we have made 25 Ural Owl boxes. Half of these will be for the Zemplén Hills, the other half for Transylvania. The owl boxes were created by Zoltán Petrovics our famous local guide (known as the ´woodpecker man´). Each of them weigh about 6kg and made out of oak so they will last for up to 12 years. We also have a small mirror to help the survey work without actually disturbing the breeding owls. These type of boxes proved to be very popular for the owls over the last 20 years. This winter Sakertour spent 800 euros on the owl box project.

Ural Owl nest boxes ready for put-out                                                    Photograph: János Oláh

Sakertour team

Gábor just uploaded the latest Ornitholidays tour report to our trip report gallery. You can find it here.

Bearded Tit                                                                                      Photographer: Gábor Simay

Sakertour team

Our partner tour with Terres Oublies has started today and we hope for some nice images of raptors and woodpeckers in the next week! The weather will be rainy in the first two days but hopefully the second part of the tour will be cold and sunny. At the moment eagles and buzzards regularly visit our hides and sometimes even the scarce Rough-legged Buzzard puts up an appearance. We will keep you posted of the first tour of the 2011/2012 Season.

Rough-legged Buzzard (female)                                                                     Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

The 2011/2012 eagle season is just starting from 1st December 2011. There are many White-tailed Eagles around the Hortobágy at the moment as still lots of geese present. The night temperature is down to -5C now but daytime weather is still not cold. We hope to see you in our eagle hides soon!

White-tailed Eagle                                                                                           Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

Late Autumn was lovely dry and sunny in Hungary and there were some fantastic possibilities for photography. Our drinking hides are still in full operation and in 2011/2012 winter we will try for the first time to keep some drinking water at the hide throughout the coldest periods as well (heating).

Although we have subzero temperatures now every night the drinking pool attracts many birds in daytime. Thrushes, woodpeckers, tits, finches are abundant!

Slowly the superb colours of October and November are disappearing but it is not far now for the eagle season! Look out for raptor images on our website and hope to see you in Hungary this winter!

Mistle Thrush

Eurasian Sparrowhawk

Eurasian Jay

Black Woodpecker

All photos by János Oláh

Sakertour team

The trip report of our successful 2011 Autumn Tour has just been uploaded and you can see it here. All the possible targets has been seen including a large flock of Lesser White-fronted Goose, 8 species of woodpeckers including White-backed Woodpecker and 5 species of owls including Ural Owl.

This tour will run again next year from 6-12 October.

White-backed Woodpecker                                                                             Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

This tour concentrated on the spectacular Crane migration and the arriving masses of northern Geese in the Hortobágy area and its surrounding. We spent a week in the Hortobágy and we did well regarding both of our targets, and we did see many more. 

Smaller and bigger flocks of Common Carnes were seen every day feeding on stubble fields and grasslands but the real spectacle was when we visited their biggest evening roost, and seen more than 30.000 Cranes flying line after line.

Though we had several encounters of bigger geese flocks, we had a special day, when we recorded no less, than 9 species of geese! (considering Taiga and Tundra Bean as separate species) Among them especially good views of Red-breasted Geese.

Beside we saw Imperial, two Great Spotted and many White-tailed  Eagles, Saker Falcons, Long-legged and Rough-legged Buzzard. 23 Great Bustards and 18 Dotterels. 

Regarding the woodpeckers we were also lucky with 6 species recorded what is really good in the lowlands.

We also recorded a mega rarity! We were close enough to a ringing station in Hortobágy Fishponds to see Hungary´s third Pine Bunting without a real effort!  

This trip was special weather wise too – we had seven days sunshine and warm weather, often reaching 15 Celsius degree. 

Common Cranes flying to their night roost

Adult and juvenile (1y) Great Spotted Eagle

Dotterel

Black Woodpecker

Male Bearded Reedling

Penduline Tit and its nest 

Juvenile (1y) female Pine Bunting        All photos: Simay Gábor

Sakertour team

In the 3rd week of October a small group of nature photographers from Scotland spent a week in Hortobagy. This trip was designed to coincide with the peak of the European Crane passage through Eastern Hungary and this year over 100 000 individual stayed in this region!

Cranes still visited our drinking place daily and in a same time 30 000 individual roosted in front of our hide.

During this week they had chance to photograph birds from other different hides as well and to see the results please take a look here.

Cranes catching pink light (Photo: Eric MacCabe/Wildscotphotos)

White-tailed Eagle getting tail pulled by Hooded Crow (Photo: Eric MacCabe/Wildscotphotos)

Goshawk  (Photo: Eric MacCabe/Wildscotphotos)

Sakertour team

During this trip we will spent seven days on the Hortobágy. We will concentrate on mainly the migration and roosting of the Common Cranes and we will chase the just arriving big northern goose flocks for the rare specialties…

The autumn weather so far has been very nice with little rain and lot of sunshine. Hopefully the it will remain the same during the next week!

We will keep you updated about the tour!

Photo: Simay Gábor

Sakertour team

During the first week of October we visited the Hortobágy area and also the Zemplén Hills. The weather was stunning, sunny and warm. We recorded 8 species of woodpeckers, including White-backed and 5 species of owls, including scope views of an Ural Owl (three more were heard). In the Hortobágy no less then 74 Lesser White-fronted Geese, 45 Dotterels and 15 Great Bustards were seen. In the wet grasslands Red-throated Pipits were common, and a Jack Snipe was also seen. We had three encounters with Eastern Imperial Eagles and two with Saker Falcon and Long-legged Buzzards respectively. We were lucky enough to find some Red-footed Falcons as well on this mid-autumn date. 

In the Hortobágy, bigger and smaller flocks of Common Cranes were seen everywhere, but in the evenings huge flocks were flying towards their night roosts. At one place we saw more than 20.000 flying from all direction into their roost site.

Dotterel

Roosting Common Cranes

Hawfinchis were numerous in the woodlands

Long-eared Owl                   All photos: Simay Gábor

Sakertour team

Our fixed date tour started on the 1st October and our guests enjoying superb weather with some exciting birds. The tour started in the Hortobágy area and after the first two days such goodies were seen as 74 Lesser White-fronted Goose (record sized flock; the last such a group was seen in 90´s). They also had fantastic views of Dotterels, Imperial Eagle, Saker, Long-legged Buzzard and Great Bustard. This one-week long tour offers a wide selection of birds. Also this year we already have 60 000 Cranes so the Hortobágy is a real migration hotspot now!

Next year this tour will run from 6-12 October.

Juvenile Eurasian Dotterel                                                                                                       Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

In mid September the number of Common Cranes staging in the Hortobágy area starts to increase rapidly. Already there are several thousands which may reach a hundred thousand later in the season (at the moment as 26th od September about 17 000 birds present). 

The late summer and the autumn so far has been so warm and dry that the Cranes can hardly find any pools to drink from. Therefore the ditch in front of the hides attract sometimes even two hundred birds. These images were taken recently from this hide.

Our roosting Crane hide is also in operation soon!

Come and photograph Cranes with Sakertour!

All photos: Simay Gábor

Sakertour Team

Late August and early September is an excellent period to see waders in the Carpathian-basin, especially in the Hortobágy area. Many species migrates this time and among them some scarce species turn up every now and then. This is the period to see Broad-billed Sandpiper and Red-necked Phalarope as well. This year was excellent especially for the former, as they were present in the mudflats of the drained fishponds and swallow temporary waters. 

Broad-billed Sandpiper

Red-necked Phalarope

Wood Sandpiper is among the commonest migrants      All photos: Simay Gábor

Sakertour team

In certain dry years September can be a very productive time to photograph Cranes in the Hortobágy National Park. The numbers just starting to build up and only a few hundred Cranes present in the park yet but they regularly drink and bath around our hides in the warm weather. This weekend the temperature was around 30C still and although there is going to be a cold front next week it should not disturb the Cranes visiting the drinking and bathing places.

Come and photograph Cranes with us!

Adult and juvenile Crane drinking                                                                  Photo: János Oláh

During this one week long trip we recorded 175 bird species, among them 26 wader species. 

Weatherwise it was unusually warm, dry and sunny all week long.

We started our week in the Zemplén-hill which proved to be excellent for soaring birds. One day we saw more than 300 migrating White Stroks. Birds of pray were literally everywhere with several Eastern Imperial, Lesser Sptted, Short-toed and White-tailed Eagles and many Black Storks.

In the Hortobágy we concentrated on waterbirds for which the several drained fishponds and swallow ponds and marshes proved to be excellent. We recorded some scarcer migrants like Red-necked Phalarope and – in three occasions – Broad-billed Sandpipers. We had an excellent spot where we saw Little Crakes, Spotted Crakes and Water Rails together.

Beside these we saw Great Bustards, no less then 29 Dotterels (26 adult and three juveniles), Long-legged Buzzard and Saker Falcons. We visited a Red-footed Falcon roost site which was a memorable event with the nice summer sunset in the background.

Migrating White Storks

Lesser Spotted Eagle

Juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle

Femail Monatgue´s Harrier

Icterine Warbler

Lesser Gray Shrike

Adult Dotterel                                                                              All photos: Gábor Simay

Sakertour team

On the 22nd July the breeding of Cattle Egret on the Hortobágy has been proved when the national park ranger János Tar has found two freshly out of the nest young birds in the company of 4 adults. The breeding was suspected throughout late May and June as adult birds were regularly seen around the Hortobágy Fishponds. Now we can say all European egrets breeding in the Hortobágy area.

Cattle Egret with freshly fledged young in th Hortobágy                                                             Photo: János Tar

Sakertour team

There is a fantastic E-book by one of our guest on his website under ´Parc National d´HORTOBAGY´ gallery please take a look here! Patrick Gallet was one of the participant of the Terres Oublies 2011 May group and he enjoyed photographing in the Hortobágy National Park!

Bee-eater                                                                      Photo: Patrick Gallet

Sakertour team

Our photography season is slowly coming to an end now. We still have four hides in operation until 25th July:

Red-footed Falcon Hide – We have an incredible 4 pairs of Red-footed Falcons and a Roller breeding around the hide this year (plus two pairs of Kestrels finished succesfully). Still all the redfoot chicks in the boxes but only about 10 days left for them before fledging. The Roller still has very young chicks. This year special is to have an absolutely amazing yellow background on the western side in the form of a sunflower field!

Roller Hides – As well as having a late breeding individual on the falcon tower we still have a morning and an afternoon Roller hide. The afternoon hide is only have a few days to go as the chicks are big. The morning hide is still good until 25th July.

Pygmy Cormorant Hide – The lovely yelow-fringed waterlilly covering the entire bay where our hide is located. There is less Pygmy Cormorant activity now but grebes, ducks and egrets still around daily. The first Little Carke has just been photographed today there. Today also a Moustached Warbler was photographed!

Passerine Drinking Hide – Usually good activity in the hot summer days though a huge storm poured 80+mm rain on the surroundings on Monday so it will take 3-4 days untill all the puddles will go.

Great Reed Warbler                                                                                        Photo: János Oláh

Birdwatching is also getting more difficult for the breeding species though autumn migration is in full swing now! The Hortobágy area still has the long-staying Dalmatian Pelican, a Pallas´s Gull is being seen with irregularity. You can find info on rare birds on the RAREBIRDS.hu! You can also reed about the Daurian Redstart in Hungary (unknown origin) on the same page!

Sakertour team

Our friend Beat Rüegger who has been coming to Hungary and Transylvania for birdwatching for many many years is our partner for the photography-tours in Switzerland. He has led the first tour in 2011 in cooperation with Liberty Bird. You can see some of his images here.

Middle Spotted Woodpecker  Photo: Beat Rüegger

Sakertour team

We had a great team of photographers on our fixed date tours in late May and early June. The photography was excellent with some warm summer weather almost throughout both tours. Some of our clients made a blog entry about their trip and you can read it here:

Anthony McLean´s blog.  

Richard Smith´s blog.

Michael Southcott´s blog.

Golden Oriole from our Bee-eater hide                                  Photo: Anthony McLean

Roller in flight                                                                        Photo: Michael Southcott

Sakertour team

We spent eight days (six full and two half) with the Travelling Naturalists group in the Zemplén Hills and the Hortobágy during the last week of May. We recorded well over 170 species during this time, with all 9 species of woodpeckers, Ural and Eagle Owl, Eastern Imperial, Lesser Spotted, Golden, White-tailed and Short-toed Eagles amongst others.

Lesser Spotted Eagle                                            Photo: Simay Gábor

We managed a good list of different warbler species with close and prolonged views of River and Moustached warblers as well, while a confiding male Little Crake fed just a few meters away for several minutes.

Singing River Warbler                                             Photo: Simay Gábor

Male Little Crake                                                     Photo: Simay Gábor

Besides the breeding and more regular migrant species, this time we also recorded a mega raritiy – not just to Hungary, but to Europe as a whole – a beautiful  breeding-plumaged Sharp-tailed Sandpiper! Fantastic!

Sakertour team