With our friends (Balla Dániel, Molnár Szilvi and Vasas András) the Sakertour team placed out a Ural Owl nest box in the Bihar Mountains in Romania, but near to the Hungarian border, to a location just a little bit more than two houres drive from the Hortobágy. We have a good chance to attract the owls into the nest box, as the surrounding mature beech forest is an excellent habitat for them with several observations from the previous years.

Balla Dániel is helping from the ground

Photo: Gábor Simay

Crested Tits are among the commoner birds in the higher, spruce forest region

Photo: Gábor Simay

The higher montanous areas were still snow covered, and the landscape was beautiful…

Photo: Gábor Simay

Sakertour team

We made our annual winter waterbird count on the lower part (Carpathian Basin section) of the River Danube from Orsova to Bazias in Transylvania. This c.130 kilometer stretch of Danube usually holds 25,000-30,000 waterbirds in winter. Numbers also depend on ice cover of the upper Danube sections (mainly in Hungary) as well as the weather generally.

The Kazán-pass along the Danube                                                         Photo: Zoltán Petrovics

This year the count was only 18,459 waterbirds, of which the outstanding result was the record number of Smews. We counted a total 2,062 wintering birds of this lovely bird. The only species which was far less numerous as usual was the Coot. We only counted 1542 individuals which barely compares with the 8000+ last year though the water level of the Danube was very high!

Smews in a mixed diving duck flock along the Danube                                                            Photo: János Oláh

Velvet Scoters                                                                                                                         Photo: Dániel Balla

Other highlights included a Bernacle Goose (very rare bird inTransylvania), 5 Scaup, 3 Velvet Scoters, 7 Red-breasted Mergansers, 47 Goosanders, Sombre Tits and several Cirl Buntings. The latter two species are rare and restricted breeding birds in the Carpathian Basin.

Male and female Cirl Bunting                                                                                 Photos: János Oláh

Juvenile Goshawk at Orsova                                                                                   Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

In addition to White-tailed Eagle photography our guests enjoyed terrific Long-eared Owl moments in January 2011. There are about 120 bird in Balmazújváros and some of them showing perfectly. They are somewhat special in recent days with overnigth temperatures dropping to -10 or even -15C and the owls have variable amount of frost on their feathers.

Long-eared Owls in January 2011                                                                   Photos: János Oláh

Sakertour team

The Hungarian Ornithological Society (MME) – http://www.mme.hu/ – made the 8th Hungarian Eagle count in mid January. During this event over 275 observers counted wintering eagles all over Hungary. The most common eagle was White-tailed Eagle with 475 individuals and about 60 of these were in the Hortobágy region! This number in the Hortobágy area was well undercounted because of thick fog throughout the counts (14-15 January). Just 10 days later well over 90 WtE were counted in the Hortobágy area. Second most common was the Eastern Imperial Eagle with 170 individuals seen, followed by one Golden Eagles and three Greater Spotted Eagle.

The activity around the Sakertour eagle hides in the Hortobágy National Park is changing every day. Today we had 3 WtE at one of our hides.

Adult White-tailed Eagle carrying food                                                            Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

One of our partner tour operator arrived today to the Hortobágy National Park. The Terres Oubliées group main target is Whit-tailed Eagle photography. Hopefully the weather will be good, the forecast is promising with cold winter days and sunshine for the next week with some snow. A definite improvment to the foggy, misty, wet two weeks behind us!

Adult White-tailed Eagle                                                                            Photo: János Oláh

We will let you know the success of the photo-tour!

Sakertour Team

The winter in Hungary is certainly wet and variable this year (2010/2011)! The water situation has not improved (since April) at all and the eastern part of the Hortobágy National Park received almost 1400mm precipitation in 2010. This is just about three times the normal and made photography difficult last year.

Adult White-tailed Eagle                                                                                                        Photo: Gábor Simay

The White-tailed Eagle photography was excellent throughout December however and many of our visiting photographers enjoyed great views and many actions of these magnificent birds. Since Christmas the activity droped but still very nice images were captured!

Juvenile White-tailed Eagles                                                                          Photo: Johan and Chris Paulussen

Unfortunately a rapid change does not help with the eagle-photography and they can be rather unpredictable. Most of the time, however, at least one hide is visited by the eagles almost on daily basis.Also several colour-ringed birds were seen and photographed giving good data fot the research team.

Colour-ringed subadult White-tailed Eagle                                                    Photo: Johan and Chris Paulussen

Also the daily activity can vary a lot depending on the weather and other circumstances. We had a few days when many eagles visited the hide area daily and then lots of action shots were possible!

Juvenile White-tailed Eagle fighting with crows                                                                        Photo: János Oláh

See a few images below and also more images are due to be uploaded into our galleries so please keep checking here!

Calling adult White-tailed Eagle                                                                     Photo: Johan and Chris Paulussen

Subadult White-tailed Eagle                                                                           Photo: Johan and Chris Paulussen

We will have the annual eagle count on the 14th and 15th January so we will get to know the number of wintering eagles in Hungary. We will keep you posted!

Sakertour team

The December Sakertour set-date eagle photography tour was good, many eagles were around. Tour participant Tony gave a detailed description of the tour in his blog so please take a look: Tony McLean´s East Yorkshire Wildlife Diary

Adult White-tailed Eagle                                                                              Photo: Tony McLean

More eagle news of all the December events is to come with lots of images so keep an eye on our blog and hide gallery!

Sakertour Team

Shinwa tours returned to Hungary again in November 2010 for their annual Red-breasted Goose pilgrimage! The weather was excellent and there were up to 60,000 geese in the Hortobágy region. Happily the group managed absolutely amazing views of both Lesser White-fronted and Red-breasted Geese and other highlights were: over 40 Great Bustards with a flock of 26 big males; a big roost of Long-eared Owls and the evening flight of nearly 10,000 Cranes to their roosting site.

Long-eared Owl                                         Photo: Gabriella Tóth

During the tour all Hortobágy species special for Japanese birdwatchers were ´collected´, such as  Merlin, Saker, Penduline Tit, Bearded Tit, Pygmy Cormorant, Little Owl, Shelduck, Ruff, Peregrine Falcon, Great Grey Shrike, Blue Tit, Brambling, Fieldfare and Ferruginous Duck, etc.

We saw our first woodland species (such as Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Short-toed Treecreeper, Hawfinch, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Black Woodpecker and Marsh Tit) in the Great Forest of Debrecen, and continued collecting them in the Zemplén Hills (Black Redstart, Syrian Woodpecker, Green and Grey-headed Woodpecker, Bullfinch, Coal Tit and Tawny Owl). Eastern Imperial Eagle was another of the highlights in the Zemplén. The ´Bird of the tour´ was inevitably Red-breasted Goose and Hungary remains one of the easiest countries in the world in which to see the wonderful creature.

Sakertour team

We were delighted to operate another Hungary in Autumn tour for Birdquest this year! The tour was positioned to see the fantastic-looking Red-breasted Goose and the increasingly rare Lesser White-fronted Goose on the same tour. This year we saw both species without difficulty. It took some time to locate them amongst the 80,000 geese present in the Hortobágy region but we finally got multiple great looks at both species!

Red-breasted Geese      Photo: tour participant Hugh Gallagher

This action packed short break to Hungary this year was blessed with fantastic weather throughout the tour and in addition to the birds we experienced the superb wine of Tokaj as well.

Ural Owl                         Photo: tour participant Hugh Gallagher

Birding highlights of the five days apart from the geese were eight species of woodpeckers (including White-backed), six species of owls (including Eurasian Eagle and Ural), Ferruginous Ducks, Saker, Greater Spotted, White-tailed and Eastern Imperial Eagles, Great Bustard and thousands of cranes. It is always relaxing to watch the roosting-flight of the cranes. A very nice tour indeed!

Sakertour team