Usually the end of February means the end of the eagle photography season too. The March started with an unusually warm weather, when the midday temperature rose even to 14 Celsius degree. Normally, the White-tailed Eagles from the northern populations, which had spent the winter in the Carpathian-basin, left the region by this time.

Well, this year was not like that. Till mid-March, eagles visited continuously the surrounding of the hides, creating excellent opportunities for the photographers. 30-40 eagles turned up daily, and sometimes no less, then 30 birds gathered in the very vicinity (40 meters) of the hides at the same time. The maximum number was 74 individuals around this spot during these days. Also, an immature Eastern Imperial Eagle spent a couple of days around, but, because of the dominating White-tailed Eagles, it seldom managed to get some food.

The warm weather in mid-March ended with an unusually cold, snowy weather. Though the snow melted quite quickly, it was still odd to take pictures with a snowy background this time of the year.

Now, we are preparing for the spring. Around the hides new species and opportunities are turning up quickly!

Sakertour team

Photos: Attila Szilágyi

Photos: János Tar

In 01.03.2013. an immature male Black-throated Thrush was found by Dániel Balla in Debrecen. It was in the well wooded area close to the University around the so called Békás-pond. The bird is still there and it has been seen at the same spot every day since it had been first observed, though it is elusive and often dissapears for hours, prefers to stay high or in the dens coniferous vegetation. (photo: Gábor Simay)

We had an international group of photographers from six different countries! The weather was extremely variable for the tour. On the arrival day it was difficult to drive even on the main roads because of the continuous snowing and gale forced wind. On the first two days there was snow cover on the ground and several excellent images were captured by the tour participants.

White-tailed Eagle calling! Photo: Marco Poggione

White-tailed Eagle catching fish. Photo: Marco Poggione

On the last two days the snow was gone but the eagle activity was just as good in front of the hides! In 2013 / 2014 winter we will run two different White-tailed Eagle photo-tours. Please check out the dates and the tour HERE!

Eagles in front of the hide. Photo: János Oláh

Portrait of a subadult bird. Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

The Hortobágy National Park (HNP) made an Eagle count in mid January 2013. During this event the rangers counted the wintering eagles all over national park directorate. The numbers were high with 193  White-tailed Eagle, 11 Eastern Imperial Eagles and one Greater Spotted Eagle. In the strictly speaking Hortobágy area 168 WtE were counted.

Activity at our hides continues to be good with 3-15 eagles visiting each hide daily. Please take a look of a video made from our hide a few days ago by our friend Csaba Lóki. For more images please visit his website as well!

White-tailed Eagles in the 2012/2013 season from our hides. Photo: Csaba Lóki

Sakertour team

Sakertour team

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