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

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