A Sakertours Eastern Europe Kft. a Széchenyi 2020 keretei között nyert GINOP_PLUSZ-1.2.2-22-2022-04684 számú projektjét sikeresen megvalósította.

A projetből finanszírozott eszközökkel lehetővé válik vendégeink szélesebb körű kiszolgálása, jobb marketing célú képek készítése, valmint a hatékonyabb munkavégzés mind leshálózatunknál és vezetett csoportjainknál valamint az irodában egyaránt.

Köszönjük az Európai Unió és Magyar Állam támogatását!

Our annual Spring birdingtours in the region were finished well and are easily traced from the already published trip reports by clicking here, where one more tasty paper is adding spice to all the birding stuff.

We have been working hard in the past years to improve not just our birdwatching tours but the ones focusing on mammals as well. This year the hard work payed off as we reached 50 recorded mammal species on our Romanian Mammal Tour in just 9 days of eventful and exciting search with some very special ones inluded like Romanian Hamster or the European Mink.

Romanian Hamster seen on the tour (image by Zoltán Gergely Nagy)

A part of Sakertours' team visited the Mountains in Slovakia as part of the preparation works for this year's birdwatching tours. A few days spent in the mountains were a refreshing experience as snow was still covering the majority of the area at higher elevations. However, even the heavy snow and harsh conditions couldn't stop us finding some good birds and enjoying a great time together – birwatching is always fun and joy.

Some new spots were discovered and well known places were checked and now we are waiting for a successful start of the season.

We found Eurasian Pygmy Owl on promising spots (image by Dániel Balla)

Our team facing winter conditions at higher elevations (image by Tamás Zalai)

We are happy to announce our latest mammalwatching tour in Transylvania! On this specialized tour we wil target to see the 'ghost of the forest', the Eurasian Lynx. We have been working for years to locate territoires and set- up this tour and finally decided our chances are as good as it can be with this shy mammal. If you interested in this tour take a look of the detailed write-up of this single based (7 days) tour in Transylvania.

Eurasian Lynx by Zoltán Gergely Nagy

Spring is here, however freezing cold mornings suggests the opposite, the migrant birds are coming back. We already have bigger numbers of Northern Lapwings and some European Golden Plovers while the winter staging Fieldfares are still found around in flocks.

The arrival of Spring also means we finished the Eagle photography season. This winter was productive as usual at our hides, with some very special avian guests in front of our hides.

For a brief summary of the Winter hide photography check our Hortobágy Bird Photography blog.

Eastern Imperial Eagle in juvenile plumage by ©Attila Szilágyi

Our team in Transylvania was also active. Snow situation is always more serious there compared to the one in the Hortobágy region, this year it was not as strong as usual. Probably that was the reason for a higher activity of bears in snowy conditions giving some superb opportunities to photograph them. For a selection of images of not just bears click on our Transylvania Blog.

Carpathian Brown Bear by ©Szabolcs Kovács

In the year of 2020 when travelling was restricted we devoted our time to plan and design as well as try out our ideas for a mammal watching tour. The inaugural tour was a great succes (report of 2020 tour) and now we offer two different tours for those interested to watch mammals!

One of the tour is a full 9 days adventure to Romania and try to see as many species on a single tour as possible. While the other is a short tour focusing on the Danube Delta and trying to see the critically endangered European Mink.

We hope to see you on any of these tours – adventures!

European Mink (Photo: Zoltán Nagy)

Brandt's Myotis (Brandt's bat) (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

Despite the challenges this year brought us, our team tried their best and at least we were enjoying the time we spent with the specialties here, even without our guests.
All our blogs are now complete with posts from the main season of this year with more images than words. Check & enjoy the summaries and share if you liked them.

Our base in the Hortobágy was productive with all our hides productive in their season. Check the blog posts by visiting the main page of. https://birdphotographyinhortobagy.wordpress.com

A male Red-footed Falcon displaying (János OLÁH)

Our blog of the magic found in Transylvania – of course mainly from a birdwatcher’s perspective – has some nice images of the birds around and a few from our Bear Hides of the Carpathian Brown Bears which were visiting the hides this Spring. https://birdwatchingtransylvania.wordpress.com

A Capercaillie at the lekking ground from our new hide on the Hargitha Mountain (Zoltán BACZÓ)

And finally, the masses of birds from the Danube Delta and the surrounding area which provides probably one of the best destinations both for those searching for an unforgettable birdwatching experience and for bird photographers as well. https://birdwatchingdanubedelta.wordpress.com

Pallas's Gulls were one of the main targets in the Danube Delta this year again (Dániel BALLA)

Despite not running, we drove through the whole itinerary of our new Hungary-Austria-Slovenia-Croatia Spring Tour for a short birdwatching as the borders opened. Even a shortened version  sqeezed into a few days produced most of the gem species of this special programme.
In the high Alps we tracked down the alpine species including Lesser Redpoll, Ring Ouzel, Alpine Chaugh and the European endemic Citril Finch just to mention a few.

Male Citril Finch by János OLÁH

Further South, on the Adriatic coast we found a bunch of mediterranean specialties like Black-headed Bunting, Blue Rock Thrush, Sardinian, Eastern Orphean and Subalpine Warblers and many others. However the highlights of the whole tour were the Eleonora's Falcons, which were hunting for insects around us in a flock like Red-footed Falcons do in Hungary.

Dark morph Eleonora's Falcon from Croatia by Dániel BALLA

Woodchat Shrike from Croatia by János OLÁH

Hortobágy is definitely one of the best places to collect big numers of Ruffs on migration. From the middle of March to the middle of May birdwatchers going around in the area can feel that they are always surrounded with Ruffs almost everywhere in the open areas. Despite being a very common bird in Spring, it is very hard to properly photograph them, as they don't tend to stay at the same place, instead their small to huge sized flocks are always keep moving and moving and changing their feeding sites.

This year – finally – our team managed to find a spot where the habitat was so reach in food and the conditions were perfect to have shorebirds always there, that we decided to try it for our shorebird hide. It finally turned out to be a successfull move, as we had several species of waders in front of it in April and the first half of May. Black-winged Stilts, Common Redshanks, Northern Lapwings and Green Sandpipers were nearly every day photographable but for the most luckies Hungarian photographers, in the first half of May Ruffs were appearing in front of the hide's glass sometimes the males fighting and displaying to the females.

We put together a short summary on our blog with smart illustration how it looked from the hide, click and enjoy.

Flock of Ruffs turning above a wetland in the Hortobágy National Park by János Oláh

Male Ruff starting his display by János Oláh

The MME/BirdLife Hungary organized the 3rd Pannonian Eagle Count (which was also the 17th Hungarian), where experts from seven countries were involved to search and count all the Eagles possible to assess a wintering population in the area. Besides the Eagles other raptor species were counted as well.
A total of 396 observer from Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia counted more than 1,100 White-eailed Eagles and more than 530 Imperial Eagles and for addition almost 13,000 other raptor species were taken into account including an interesting number of almost 9,000 Common Buzzard.

For more detailed information visit the site for the conservation of the Pannonian population of Imperial Eagles. 

This season the Hortobágy was again the No.1 site for White-tailed Eagles (again) and the feeding stations operated by Sakertours (within the Hortobágy National Park) are important for the wintering eagles.

For more pictures and a short summary about the 2019/2020 winter season in the Hortobágy please take a look at our Hortobágy Photography blog.

Juvenile Imperial Eagle surrounded by White-tailed Eagles in the Hortobágy by ©Jure Novak

Adult White-tailed Ealge from the Hortobágy by ©Jure Novak

Sakertour Team