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)

Another new tour has just been uploaded to our website! Please check out the itinerary HERE! This fantastic tour is a true mammal photography adventure where we will be photographing Carpathian BrownBears in Transylvania and then will try to capture Golden Jackals on our cards in the Danube Delta. This tour will only run once in 2014 from 22 to 29 March.

Our 8 days tour is running in cooperation with Skua Nature of Italy!

Golden Jackals in March 2012 in the Danube Delta (Carlo Galliani / image courtesy of Skua Nature). A dominant male in the front and a female in the background. You can see the scars on the male as early spring is the time of territorial fights!

Carpathian Brown Bear in March 2012 in Transylvania (Attila Szilágyi)

Sakertour team

Our leader Sándor Borza completed the report of his highly successful 2013 tour. This is our longest birdwatching tour covering all the basic habitats of the Carpathian Basin and visiting three countries! Please read the report!

Barred Warbler is a fantastic looking Sylvia warbler and readily seen on this tour (Photo: János Oláh).

Sakertour team

After two years of work and one year testing finally we launched our Brown Bear Hide-Photography tour. Please see the tour description!

Wild Carpathian Brown Bear (Photo: Gábor Simay)

We have two dates for 2014 online!

Sakertour team

Its been a long while we updated our website with any news as all of us has been very busy with Spring works!

Our spring birding tours in Hungary and Transylvania (and in Slovakia) were very successfull this year. Our main transect tours all have seen over 200 species and included lots of goodies like Ural Owl, Tengmalm´s owl, Eurasian Pygmy Owl, Three-toed and White-backed Woodpeckers, Capercaillie, Little Crake, Corncrake, Wallcreeper etc. The 31 days of May every year seem to fly away in a blink of an eye and it was the same in 2013. Lots of images and the fine memories remain…

A little selection of images from Spring 2013:

Capercaillie female in Transylvania (Photo: János Oláh)

Eurasian Pygmy Owl in Transylvania by tour participant (Photo: Nigel Moore)

Three-toed Woodpecker in Transylvania by tour participant (Photo: Nigel Moore)

Little Crake male (Photo: János Oláh)

Wallcreeper (Photo: János Oláh)

We will be updating our Hungary Photography Blog soon about May and June actions as the season is ending now. It was busy but rewarding spring in Hungary for bird-photography!

Our team in Romania is still working with photo-tours but no doubt a Danube Delta up-date is also coming up!

We also have an interesting selection of new tours coming up for 2014! So keep an eye on our website!

Sakertour team