The White-tailed Eagle photography season has started on the 1st of December. It is almost the end of the month now so high time to give you some insight of the past weeks. December 2012 was excellent so far at the Sakertour hides as we had eagles every day – 100% success rate! Well of course if it is misty or rainy it does not feel such a great success but looking from the eagle attendance at the hides it cannot get better. The numbers are continuously changing just as the weather does but we had up to 30 eagles at our hides at a single day. The biggest number was 17 White-tailed Eagle at one hide.

Juvenile White-tailed Eagle in flight Photo: Kevin Johnson

Most unusual was the observation of three different Eastern Imperial Eagles in December. One bird was seen only for a single day but the second bird is here for several days now and a third one joined in today (2 birds today).

Juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle (the first unringed bird) Photo: Kevin Johnson

Juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle (the second ringed bird) Photo: Will Nichols

There was a short spell of real winter with -12,5 lowest temperature but otherwise it is not cold here. January is coming and we still have some free places in our hides if you feel like some White-tailed Eagle photography in January 2013!

Sakertour team

The Hortobágy National Park had a geese-count where the main focus was to establish the number of the globally endangered Red-breasted Geese staging within the national park. The count was successful and 206 Red-breasted Geese were seen though the real number should be around 250-300 individuals as not all places can be surveyed in a single day!

Red-breasted Goose (Photo: Gábor Simay)

The trip report of Danube Delta and Black Sea coast Autumn tour now available on our website. This trip was organized in cooperation with Limosa Holidays and The Travelling Naturalist. 

You can read more about this successful tour here. Enjoy!

A total of 5 Little Bitterns were seen during the trip (photo by tour participant Gordon Small)

Sakertour team

This year´s Ornitholidays autumn tour was slightly later than usual, in early November. Due to the fine and relatively warm weather we could still record a fair number of species, including some unusual one  – like Great Northern Diver (together with Black and Red-throated), Kittiwake, Slavonian Grebe and Pectoral Sandpiper (probably the latest ever record of the species in Hungary).

Besides local rarities we had many of the more usual species. This year produced the biggest ever Crane assemblage – so we had opportunities to watch tens of thousands of Common Cranes in the evenings. Geese also had arrived probably in bigger numbers than usual, and in the huge flocks it was not difficult to find Red-breasted and Lesser White-fronted Geese. Saker Falcon, Imperial Eagle, Long-legged and several Rough-legged Buzzards and many White-tailed Eagles were all seen well during the week. We recorded Black, Syrian and Middle-spotted Woodpeckers and extremely good views of 32 Great Bustards separated to male and female flocks.

Female Syrian Woodpecker

Common Cranes

Sakertour team

Sakertour is also a sponsor of the GDF Suez – The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2012  (Hungary) competition.

The special Sakertour prize was given to Sándor Vadász for the image named ´resting´.

It was captured in the Bihar Mountains of Transylvania (Boga Valley).

Body: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: Nikkor 8/500 Reflex

Photo by Sándor Vadász

Sakertour team

Last week we gave a brief news about the maximum number of Cranes for 2012. This was based on the last 20 years of experience when the maximum was in mid October. This year however the maximum number was on the Crane count yesterday (1st of November).This was also the highest ever count of Cranes in the Hortobágy National Park at one particular time!

The count was 112 100 Cranes at 7 roosting areas! The biggest roosts were the Kondás pond with 50 650, Virágoskút Fishponds with 25 850 and Pente-zug 16 800.

Another 8925 were counted in Southern Hungary (these birds already left the Hortobágy). Cumulative total for Hungary: 121 275

Crane family in flight (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

On the 25th of October the number of Cranes were 95 400 individuals at 6 major roosting areas in the Hortobágy National Park. The largest numbers were counted on the Kondás pond of the Hortobágy Fishpond complex (43 700) and on the Virágoskúti Fishponds (26 100).

Cranes on the Hortobágy by János Oláh

Sakertour team

During this eight days tour we were extremely lucky weatherwise, as we had full sunshine all over the week and a nice, above the average temperature. We visited the Zemplén-hills as well as the Hortobágy, where we did see all the possible woodpeckers, including White-backed and many great views of Middle-spotted. We also saw 5 species of owls, like Ural and Eagle Owl. Thanks to the nice weather, Dotterels were still around and Great Bustards and Lesser White-fronted Geese were also seen extremely well. One of the main attraction of the season are the Cranes, which were present in huge numbers with more then 40.000 seen one evening flying to roost. We even recorded some local rarities, like Lesser Yellowlegs, Grey Phalaropes (2 different individuals – one found by the group) and Herring Gull.  

Ural Owl

Flock of male Great Bustards

Dotterels

Long-eared Owl roosting

Common Cranes flying to roost (Photos: Simay Gábor)

Sakertour team

The Crane migration is a great event in the Hortobágy National Park. Every year tens of thousands arrive and gather in this grassland park. The numbers are monitored with weekly counts on the roosting sites. Usually the highest count is in the middle of the month. A total of 80 200 Cranes were counted today evening (18th of October) at 7 different roosting areas. The biggest one is the Kondás pond in the Hortobágy-Fishpond complex with 46 200 birds present.

Cranes flying to roost in the Hortobágy National Park in October 2012 (Photo: János Oláh)

Following the very good breeding succes of the Lesser White-fronted Geese in 2011 we had a very promising count in 2012 Spring. We were somehow all secretly expecting an even higher number in 2012 autumn but it did not happen. The highest count of the autumn of 2012 was 43 (45) birds (9 juvenile). Although we all know that some of the unsuccessfull breeders would not take the same migration root. Also a few birds (12 ind) already arrived to Kerkini Lake when the highest count was on the Hortobágy so the autumn total is minimum 55 birds. If you want all the recent observations of this endangered geese please visit the LWfrG portal!

Lesser White-fronted Geese flock in the Hortobágy in October 2012 (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

Autumn birding in the Danube Delta always has it`s own, different feeling, especially in September when thousands of birds are on the way to wintering areas in Africa, India or Middle East. 

This year we have had again a very enjoyable and successful trip with our partner company, Limosa Holidays.

We have recorded 180 species whitin 9 days. Highlights were 18 raptor species among them Lesser Spotted Eagles, Booted Eagles, Saker Falcons, Lesser Kestrel, Red-footed Falcons, Levant Sparrowhawks; 29 wader species such as Broad-billed Sandpiper, Mars Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalaropes, Bar-tailed Godwits, Collared Pratincoles; lots of passerines amongst them plenty Red-breasted Flycatches;  Pied and Isabelline Wheatears in fresh, autumn plumage; nice selection of woodpeckers including fabulous, prolonged view of a Black-, Grey-headed and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers; Arctic Skuas and a friendly, first year Great Black-headed or Pallas`s Gull.

The full trip report with more pictures will be available soon in our Danube Delta blog.

Sakertour team

Red-breasted Flycatchers migrates high number through Danube Delta (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

First winter Pallas`s Gull  (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)