Year: 2014

Our eagle photography season started on the 1st of December and despite the rather mild weather – almost spring like – we have had a very succesfull two weeks! We had eagles visiting our hides from the very beginning and the numbers are continously increasing. We had our partner Tatra Photography here in the first weekend of December and everybody had superb sessions with eagles. This weekend we had a workshop for a Hungarian nature photography school and up to 36 White-tailed Eagles were recorded at our hides. This is a very impressive number for early December so we are hopeful for the rest of the season! We are eagerly waiting for snow and proper winter conditions now!

If you interested we still have two places left of our February 2015 tour!

Portrait of an adult White-tailed Eagle from December 2014 (Photo: János Oláh).

White-tailed Eagle at dawn by our hides from December 2014(Photo: János Oláh).

Juvenile White-tailed Eagle in early morning frost from December 2014 (Photo: János Oláh).

Adult White-tailed Eagle arriving (Photo: János Oláh).

Juvenile White-tailed Egale arriving (Photo: János Oláh).

Magnificent adult bird from December 2014 (Photo: János Oláh).

Juvenile eagle flying towards hide in December 2014 (Photo: János Oláh).

Sakertour team

Our team had a long weekend in Transylvania – we missed those who could not make it! This was a nice social event as well as some great nature conservation work as we managed to install about 30  nest boxes. The weather was variable from sunny to snowy but the spirit was high and we had lots of fun.

Hopefully the birds will also like the new breeding places!

The nest-boxing team in Transylvania (Photo: Zoltán Gergely Nagy).

The nest boxing team in action (Photo: Zoltán Gergely Nagy).

Nest box for Ural Owl (Photo: Zoltán Gergely Nagy).

And this is what we HOPE! Ural Owl breeding in our artifical nestbox – image taken in May 2014 (Photo: János Oláh).

Sakertour team

Sakertour is also a sponsor of the GDF Suez – The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2014  (Hungary) competition.

The special Sakertour prize was given to András Mészáros for the image named 'Black-winged Stilt love'.

Congratulations!

Photo by András Mészáros

Sakertour team

In the middle of October 2014 thousands of White-fronted Geese arrived to the Hortobágy region. Among them increasing number of Red-breased Geese were seen sometime big flocks. Therefore local bird experts and rangers of Hortobágy National Park decided to make a Red-breasted Goose census on 6th of November in the entire Hortobágy region.

The census resulted a record of 1733 Red-breasted Geese. The largest flock of 581 individuals was moving around the Hortobágy-fishponds.

The Red-breasted Goose is a globally threatened species which mostly overwinters along the Black Sea. According to experts, this migration could be slowly changing. In the last 25 years more and more Red-breasted Geese wintering in the Carpathian Basin.

There was an estimated 200 000 Greater White-fronted Geese during the census Further promising news for the experts that 48 individuals of the endangered Lesser White-fronted Geese were also orserved by birdwatchers.

Sakertour Team

During a custom tour we spent a few days both in the Zemplén Hills and the Hortobágy. We had great birding, depite the first two days were rather rainy. Later we had good weather with lots of sunshine.

In the hills we had eight species of woodpeckers, Ural and Eagle Owl (altogether we had 6 species of owls) and also Eastern Imperial Eagle.

In the lowlands we had multiple encounters with flocks of Great Bustrads, several Red-breasted Geese and fantastic views of Lesser White-fronted Geese just to name a few. To our biggest surpriese we also saw an immature Greater Flamingo – a rarity in a Hungary.

Female White-backed Woodpecker (Simay Gábor)

Red-breasted Goose (Simay Gábor)

Sakertour team

Our autumn tours has started in mid-September and a few are still ahead. As a copule of the tours have already ended we can say we have once again a fantastic season with lot of great birding.

The weather has been rather changeble with some rainy periods, but when it was sunny, usually the temperature was above the avarege. The Crane migration is superb and reached a new, all time record with more then 130.000 counted at the same time in the Hortobágy. The biggest roost site held more then 60.000 birds!

A few records below to summerize the birding tours:

– fantastic Common Crane roosts with tens of thousands of birds seen flying into their night roost;

– several great views of Lesser White-fronted Geese;

– the first Red-bereasted Geese have already arrived, and as early as the 14th October our group saw a nice juvenile;

– all our tours have seen many Great Bustards and had great views of them;

– eight species of woodpeckers – including White-backed – were seen well;

– we had great views of Ural and Eagle Owls;

– supporting cast included Eastern Imperial Eagle, Long-legged Buzzard, Pallid Harrier, Red-footed Falcons (only till early October), several dozen Dotterels, Broad-billed Sandpipers and Little Crakes (the latter two only in September), great views of Great Bitterns, Long-eared and Sort-eared Owls roosting side-by-side etc;

– several groups had great views of Sociable Plover (just like in 2013)!

Common Cranes in their at their night roost (photo: Szilágyi Attila) 

Tens of thousands of Cranes gathered at certain sites (Photo: Szilágyi Attila)

Dancing Common Crane (Photo: Szilágyi Attila)

Juvenile Sociable Plover in the Hortobágy (Photo: Szilágyi Attila)

Immature Eastern Imperial Eagle (Photo: Simay Gábor)

Great Bittern in flight (Photo: Simay Gábor)

Sakertour Team

Our 2014 Crane photography tour finished today. The weather was excellent throughout and many Cranes were using our drinking places where they were drinking, bathing and resting for several hours daily. Other highlights in different hides were Kingfisher, bathing Sparrowhawk and Goshawk, Bearded Tit, Golden Oriole, Syrian Woodpecker. We must also mention the special Dotterel photography and this year our guests were priviliged to photograph them from a few meters only!

This is a special tour which is designed to capture these fantastic birds in action. You can often see them bathing in a pool on their back splashing water all over.

We only run one tour a year and the 2015 dates are now online! You can check it here.

Bathing and drinking Cranes (Photo:János Oláh)

Sakertour team

We have just uploaded the report of our highly succesfull Hungary, Slovakia & Transylvania 2014 report to the trip report gallery. Please take a look here!

This tour covers a fascinating selection of birds and a wide range of habitats in three countries! If you would like to get more information please take a look here. We still have two places left on the 2015 tour so if you interested in some superb birding and watching Carpathian Brown Bears come and join us! I want to book on this tour.

Juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle attacked by male Pallid Harrier (image taken on the 2014 tour by János Oláh).

Sakertour team

We are glad to inform you about our `relaxing` Danube Delta Photo Tour in cooperation with our partner company in the Northern part of the Biosphere Reserve. 

The main difference to our existing Delta tour is using only a single accomadtion throughout the week inside the Delta; hide based photography through glass windows; Golden Jackal photography.

This tour were tested succesfully and now is available for you! More informations for booking.

The number one photo target of this tour is the Golden Jackal  (Photo: Richard Steel)

Sakertour team

A Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus) has been seen from one of our Brown Bear hides two days ago. We hope to show some images soon meanwhile this is a Brown Bear image from June 2014.

Carpathian Brown Bear (Photo: János Oláh)

The report of our Danube Delta – Dobrudja Spring Tour 2014 is now available. Please take a look what exciting birding can be done on the Black Sea cost in late May. Gábor Simay was leading the tour and they had hundreds of Rose-coloured Starlings and up to 180 Broad-billed Sandpipers in addition to all  key specialties.The 2015 tour date is now online and we still have some places on the tour!

Paddyfield Warbler (photo: Gordon Small tour participant)

Sakertour team

We are happy to announce that in May 2014 several woodpeckers visiting our drinking hides on a daily basis and even some more scarce and sought after subjects like Black and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers are also regular. Also in late May we had a record day when no less then 6 different woodpecker species were photographed: Lesser Spotted-, Middle Spotted-, Great Spotted, Green and Black Woodpeckers plus Wryneck!

Female Black Woodpecker at our drinking hide (Photo: Beat Rüegger / Ornifoto)

Our Hungary, Slovakia & Transylvania GT in 2014 have recorded an astonishing 230 species (2 heard only) in 12 days (10 full days birding). Our previous record on this 3 country epic Central European tour was 222 back 13 years ago.

It is enough to mention a few groups and species to see what a great tour we had! We saw 10 species of owls, 10 species of woodpeckers, Pallid Harrier, Saker, Great Bustard, Capercaillie, Little Crake, Corncrake, Wallcreeper, Sombre Tit, Nutcracker, River and Moustached Warblers, Ring Ouzel, Rock Thrush, Red-breasted Flycatcher etc. The exciting report will be available soon!

If you are interested in this ultimate European tour please check out our 2015 date!

Red-breasted Flycatcher (Photo: János Oláh)

White-backed Woodpecker (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

We spent 3 full and two half days – shared between the Hortobágy and the Zemplén-hills – with Simon and his friends and we did have some really great birding. We had really close and fabolous views of male Little Crake, long scope views of singing Moustached, River, Marsh and Barred Warblers, Ural Owl in the forest and a good range of woodpeckers and raptors, including a fine male Pallid Harrier fighting with a Short-eared Owl. Great Bustrads were still displaying, while around some wetlands we found Great Snipe, 3 Broad-billed Sandpipers, Red-throated Pipits and we had side-by-side views of Great Bitterns. The biggest surprise for sure was two adult Dalmation Pelicans in the Hortobágy!

(Photos: Gábor Simay)

Sakertour team

As May has arrived, our first birding tours have started their trips over the Carpathian-basin. We are looking forward an exciting and productive period. Spring has arrived earlier this year as the  winter was mild and the early-spring rather warm. Even the latest arrivals had turned up before May began.

Owls have occupied their nests and because – in some part of the Carpathians – beech trees produced exceptional amount of acorn we expect a good breeding results.

Eurasian Pygmy Owl – Photo: Gábor Simay

Ural Owl – Photo: János Oláh

Tengmalm´s Owl – Photo: Gábor Simay

Sakertour team

In the beautiful Bihar Mountains, just about two hours drive from the Hortobágy, one can find mature beach forests and good forest birding with a wide range of interesting species. Ural Owl is one of them and Sakertour now includes this area in its owl-boxing project. With the help of Balla Dániel and Simay Attila we placed out a a few nest-boxes to offer breeding places for these magnificent creatures. Right after we fixed the nest-boxes, in the evening a Ural Owl was calling only about a hunderd meter from one of our new nest-box!

If you would like to read an article of Bastien Juif´s latest visit to the Hortobágy please visit the NaturaPics website! The is about the photography of the ´Eagles of Hortobágy´ on a short visit to this fantastic World Heritage National Park in January 2014.

Juvenile (foreground) and adult White-tailed Egale (Photo: Bastien Juif).

Sakertour team

June is one of the best time to explore the Danube Delta and suddenly we have vacancy and able to launch another date for 2014.

For the itinerary please click here: 14-21 June.

Sakertour team

Yet again a big congratulation must go to Zoltán Gergely Nagy for his latest achivment on the European photography scene. He won the ´meetings´ category on the Festival de l´Oiseau et de la Nature 2014 in France with his image: Dominant Crow (see below). If you wish to see more winning images of the competition just click here.

If you wish to do photography with Zoltán there will be chances as he will be leading some of our Danube Delta tours in future (already in 2014). Sakertour also working with Zoli to launch some ´outdoor photography tours´ in the Wild Carpathians from 2015. Stayed tuned!

Dominant Crow by Zoltán Nagy

Sakertour team

Yesterday it was a great surprise for the photographers in the Eagle hide when a goose flock walked close to the hide. Having checked the flock they noticed a Red-breasted goose. It walked closer and closer to the hide. Finally they could take some images about it from 25 mertres. Suddenly a young Eagle disturbed the flock and they flew away. It was great experience!

Thanks for the Hansruedi Vögeli!

Red-breasted Goose with White-fronted Geese (Photos: Hansruedi Vögeli)

Because of the unusually warm winter many geese are overwintering in Hortobágy, among them about 230 Red-breasted geese can be found.

Sakertour Team