The 2013/2014 eagle season has just started a few days ago. This weekend up to 7 eagles were photographed at one hide. The night temperature is down to -5C now but daytime weather is still not very cold.

There are still some limited places for January 2014!

We hope to see you in our eagle hides soon!

Adult White-tailed Eagle (Photo: Attila Szilágyi)

Adult White-tailed Eagle (Photo: János Tar)

Sakertour team

The Autumn season of birding tours has ended now and the only word to summarize the Autumn of 2013 is FANTASTIC!

The weather was very kind to most of our groups and throughout October it was sunny and hot (up to 24C). The Crane migration was superb and long-lasting (maximum was 106 950) and we were also delighted to hear that this ´golden October´ will be long remembered in the Tokaj World Heritage Area as well, because it looks like a superb year for the delicious Tokaji Aszú!

A few statistics to summerize the birding tours:

– all our groups have seen the globally threatened Lesser White-fronted Goose

– up to 44 Red-breatsed Goose were seen ( most of the early October tours had only 1)

– Crane roosting areas held 30 000 – 40 000 birds. What a sight!

– all our tours have seen many Great Bustards and the mighty SAKER!

– all our groups managed to see the enigmatic Ural Owl in the Zemplén Hills

– White-backed Woodpecker was also seen by all birding groups

– supporting cast included Eastern Imperial Eagle, Eagle Owl, Rough-legged Buzzard etc

– rarities such as 2 different Sociable Plovers, Long-billed Dowitcher, Greater Spotted Egales were seen

Hungary in October can be magical so why dont you join us for a week of great birding in 2014. Our autumn tour will run from 4-10 October 2014. For more details click HERE!

If you have been here and want to refresh your memory how the Cranes going to roost or if you have never been here to see the Cranes check out a video of the roost flight when 45 000 birds were gathering!

Ural Owl in the quiet autumn forest of the Zemplén (Photo: János Oláh)

Juvenile Sociable Plover found by Zoltán Ecsedi (Photo: János Oláh)

White-backed Woodpecker in the Zemplén Hills (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

A huge congratulation must go to Zoltán Gergely Nagy for his latest achivment on the European photography scene. He won the bird category on the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the year 2013 bird category with his image from Bass Rock (see below). If you wish to see more images of the bird category just click here.

Zoli also has launched his new website where you can find more of his excellent work: Zoltan Nagy Photography

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 (fully booked for 2014). Sakertour also working with Zoli to launch some ´outdoor photography tours´ in the Wild Carpathians from 2015. Stayed tuned!

Dawn at Bass Rock by Zoltán Nagy

Sakertour team

The Crane migration in 2013 was / is (still happening) as spectacular as ever and the peak number was recorded on the 17th of October when 106 950 Cranes were counted in the Hortobágy National Park at four different roosting sites. The national park has a syncron count every Thursday at all the roosting places. Although this number was not the biggest ever number recorded at one time in the national park but a very impresive number indeed!

Flying Common Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

The Hortobágy National Park serves as one of the biggest (if not the biggest) gathering site for the Common Crane (Grus grus) in the World. The estimated number of birds passing through the park is about 120 000 – 140 000 individuals but now regularly over 100 000 birds staging in the park at one time.

Click here to watch the video of the Cranes going to roost at a roosting area which had 45 000 birds in 2013.

Gathering Cranes at a roosting site (Photo: János Oláh)

If you have never seen this spectacle do not hesitate to do so! Come and see the Cranes of the Hortobágy with Sakertour! We have custom and fixed tours as well! Please check out here!

Sakertour team

With our partner company, Limosa Holidays we had a very enjoyable and productive tour this Autumn where we recorded 170 species during 8 days of birding. Some species on our list are rare birds in Europe, such as Pallas´s Gull, Pied Wheatear or Paddyfield Warbler but we also encountered a great number of migrating birds as well, including masses of shorebirds, terns, raptors and passerines. The highlights species included Broad-billed Sandpiper, Terek Sandpiper, Marsh Sandpiper, Collared Pratincole, Little Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Caspian Tern, all the `marsh terns`, Lesser Spotted Eagle, Spotted Eagle, Levant Sparrowhawk and many many Red-backed Shrikes and Red-breasted Flycatcher…

You can read the detailed trip report here.

We stayed at some great hotels with welcoming and friendly people and enjoyed superb food and quality local wines. We are looking forward to seeing you here soon!

Juvenile Red-backed Shrike (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

Autumn birding in the Danube Delta (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

Sakertour team

Though the autumn forest is full of food for the Brown Bears, we had no less then five of them in two afternoons in front of our new hide (among them two cute cubs). They spent less time in front of us then they do in spring or summer, we still had the opportunity to take some nice images.

While not in the hide we had some time to do birwatching in the surrounding and despite of the unseasonally cold weather we had good activity with Wallcreeper, many Crested Tits and Nutcrackers which were buisy to collect food, especially nuts.

(Photos: Simay Gábor)

Sakertour team

We are delighted to announce that Zoltán Nagy our new photographer guide for some of our Romanian photo-tours managed to win the grand prize of 5 th. International „Milvus” Nature Photography Contest with his lovely image of a Waxwing in the winter forest of Transylvania (image name: winter visitor). Congratulation to Zoli! Please check out his current website for more information (though his new website is due to be launched soon).

´Winter visitor´ by Zoltán Nagy

There is a wide selection of possibilities for those who wish to photograph Cranes in Europe. No doubt the Hortobágy National Park – being the largest gathering place for Common Cranes anywhere in Europe or in the World – offers a wide variety of ´Crane´ subjects. Sakertour is based in the Hortobágy so naturally we know our area very well and wanted to offer Crane photography. It took us several years however to be able to present a ´Crane Photography Tour´ which is somewhat uniguqe on the market. Finally we came up with the idea of drinking and bathing Cranes! This is a special subject at the very beginning of the Crane migration when the numbers are still low but the weather is still good. This is how our early September Crane Tour was born. 2013 was the real test how much this tour can be sustainable on a yearly basis and we must say the test was successfull (participants and myself certainly had filled a few cards!)! Cranes are just amazing andif you are interested to see them close up do not hesitate to book a short tour with us – the 2014 tour dates now online!

Drinking Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Crane in flight (Photo: János Oláh)

Drinking Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

2013 season was really fantastic in the Danube Delta and all of our guests went home satisfied with many superb images on their memory cards.  

We already uploaded several images to the gallery but now you can find an overview about May and June Photo Tours separately in our Delta Blog and a selection of best moments in frame as well. 

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who made it possible to run all these tours in this superb place. See you next year!

Sakertour team

Photographers while working inside the photo boat (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

White Pelican in focus (Photo: Joan Roca)