A group of friends just arrived for a three day birding in Hortobágy and an additional day in Zemplén Hills.

On our first day we had an action-packed start. We were concentrating on raptors and we managed to see 3 White-tailed Eagles, 5 Imperial Eagles, a Long-legged Buzzard, Hen Harriers, Goshawk and 2 Sakers.

Other goodies included Ferruginous Ducks, 14 Great Bustards, 7 Stone-curlews and 84 Dotterels.

Winter plumaged Dotterel Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

Late September and October in the Hortobágy National Park is an action-packed period as the autumn bird migration is in full swing. One of the specialities is the masses of cranes visiting the park. The cranes arrive from mid September onwards and the numbers gradually build up day by day to an impressive 100,000 by the second half of October.

The Crane photography is always special and not many photographers appreciate that the Hortobágy (by far the biggest of the European Crane gathering places) can be as good for crane photography as the well-known Hornboga in Sweden! In fact the variety of subjects is probably wider and ranges from bathing and drinking Cranes to feeding and roosting Cranes.

Sakertour is slowly getting to grips with these subjects and following our first year in 2008 we now have many hides for the various subjects. We use mobile hides for the ever changing drinking and bathing places but we also have permanent hides for flying, feeding and roosting Cranes.

Adult and juvenile Cranes  Photo: János Oláh

The roosting hides are located in a fishpond where the Cranes go to roost every evening. As it is not possible to leave the roost area after dark as sometimes there are Cranes sleeping as close as 15 meters to the hides, we built a sleeping cabin with a capacity for 4 photographers. This way after the photo session they can move to the cabin (heated and comfortable) and then go back to the hides pre-dawn without disturbing the birds. A truly magical experience!

Adult Crane preparing to bath Photo: János Oláh

Please follow the autumn photographer results in our galleries or here on the blog!

More images from the beginning of the Crane Photo-season you can find here:

http://hortobagymadarfoto.wordpress.com/

or in our galleries:

http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=15

http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=16&author=&text=

Sakertour team

We have finished the installation of another superb hide in the Hortobágy National Park. It is a very comfortable multi-functional hide for several target birds. This is in steppe habitat and hopefully will be very active from April to October in future. It is a ´steppe drinking´ hide which will surely increase the photographable species list in the Spring tours! Also can be very productive in the Crane migration time or even for geese.

The first pictures were taken from this hide just recently and our firts guests were there today!

Greyleg Goose Photo: János Oláh

Juvenile Ruff Photo: János Oláh

We will updating our ´hide´ section on the website this winter with more pictures of the hides and also a more accurate species list with when to photograph comments.

We looking forward a very busy autumn with many many visiting birders and photographers but we will continously keep everybody updated about our activity!

Sakertour team

We had a group of friends visiting the Hortobágy National Park led by Lance Degnan and they had two days with Sakertour guides on the 3rd and 4th of September.

They were after not only the special birds of the park but also but some relaxed birding too.

The two days birding yielded a lot of good birds and some great numbers too!

Best sightings:30 Pygmy Cormorants, 3 Black Storks, many Garganeys, Ferruginous Ducks, up to 10 White-tailed Eagles, 7 Short-toed Egales, Montagu´s Harriers, a male Pallid Harrier, Long-legged Buzzard, 20 Red-footed Falcons, Hobby, 3 Sakers, 2 Little Crakes, 1500 Common Cranes, 11 Great Bustard, 6 Stone-curlews, 37 Dotterels, Curlew Sandpipers, 30 Long-eared Owls, 3 Hoopoes, many Bee-eaters, 5 Rollers, 20+ Tawny Pipits, 3 Lesser Grey Shrikes and 5 Golden Orioles.

A fantastic experience indeed!

Long-eared Owls Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

In the last few days due to the extreme draught and also because the migration is in full swing our Passerine Drinking Hide has hundreds of birds daily. Most interesting however that four species of woodpeckers regularly visiting the pool and even the shy Black and Green Woodpeckers are daily guests!

Black Woodpecker Photo: János Oláh

Sparrowhawk Photo: János Oláh

More images of this hide can be seen here: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=24

We are preparing our mobile hides for the Crane migration and also two new permanent hides will be available for Crane photography this autumn. At the moment the first family parties of Cranes arriving and now up to 800 birds can be seen in the northern Hortobágy.

Sakertour team

As migration is in full swing in the Hortobágy National Park more birders appear on the scene. In August we had Ben and Ian visiting us for a days´s birding with some special target birds.

Short-toed Eagle Photo: János Oláh

We had a fantastic day starting with walk-away views of a female Saker, followed by two magical Long-legged Buzzards and yet at another Saker (this time a juvenile hunting Souslik!) while a female Red-footed Falcon and Bee-eaters were hunting nearby.

Our next ´target´ was a scarce passage wader, the Broad-billed Sandpiper. With a bit of effort we located two birds on a muddy pool and had good looks of the very prominent split-supercilium of the juvenile birds. Additional goodies included 24 Black Stork and Temminck Stint.

A short visit to see 26 magical Long-eared Owls was followed by 42 superb Dotterels down to a few meter with some females still in spectacular plumage. Montagus´s Harriers were flying around us too. The final ´target´ was Great Snipe as one was reported the day before but we had no joy in the extensive marshland with this skulking species. Other birds nearby included Glossy Ibis, a fine Short-toed Eagle and a family party of Hobbies.

Sakertout team

Some of our team visited Transylvania for some late summer birding and to find more fantastic locations for future tours.

We had been to the Southern Carpathians and various wetlands too.

For detailed description see our Transylvania blog: http://birdwatchingtransylvania.wordpress.com/

Shore Lark is a scarce breeding bird of the Carpathian high plateaus over 2000 meter.

Photo: János Oláh

The fantastic landscape of the Bucegi Plateau in the Southern Carpathians.

Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour team

We had a great time with three Belgian birders. Despite having the only rainy day of the month we managed to get some superb birds. Raptors included 3 Short-toed Eagle, Long-legged Buzzard, 6 Montagu´s harrier, 2 Saker and many wonderfull Red-footed Falcons.

Adult Saker on a pylon Photo: János Oláh

Other highlights were a family party of Stone-curlews, Little Owl, up to 18 Long-eared Owls, hundreds of Cranes, Great Bustards and many many Tawny Pipits, Rollers and Lesser Grey Shrikes.

Juvenile Lesser Grey Shrike  Photo: János Oláh

Sakertour Team

We made a short visit to the southern border of the Carpathian Basin into Krassó-Szörény county in Romania. We had a wonderful morning seeing not less then five species of bunting species within a few hours. These were: Black-headed Bunting, Cirl Bunting, Ortolan Bunting, Rock Bunting and Yellowhammer.

The Black-headed Bunting is a rare breeding bird of the Carpathian Basin. As a fairly new colonizer it started to breed close to the Fruska Gora Mountains in Serbia. There is a small population there in the last 9 years. In Romania however it is a fairly common breeding bird outside the Carpathian Basin in the east. In the west the breeding has never been confirmed yet. A few years ago (2005) we saw two singing males just about two kilometer from the Romanian border. This year however we found this singing male well into Romania.

Black-headed Bunting (Emberiza melanocephala) is a rare bird in Transylvania

Photo: János Oláh

We also had several other interesting birds in this single day birding like Short-toed Eagle, Levant Sparrohawk, Red-rumped Swallow, Alpine Swift and Spansih Sparrow. The Red-rumped Swallow and the Levant Sparrowhawk are both scarce but regular breeding birds along the Danube River in Krassó-Szörény. This is the only regular breeding area for these species in the Carpathian Basin.

The Spanish Sparrow is also among the rarest of the breeding species of the Carpathian Basin. There are about 3-4 colonies known and they seem to change places after a few years. There is a decrease in the population in Serbia. In Krassó-Szörény we know two breeding locality.

Red-rumped Swallow (Hirundo daurica) is a regular but scarce breeder along the Danube in Transylvania

  Photo: János Oláh

For more images visit our Transylvania blog: http://birdwatchingtransylvania.wordpress.com/

Sakertour Team

The visiting team from naturArt managed to take some really nice images from our hides!

You can check thir selection here: http://www.naturart.hu/hortobagyi-hetvege

Sakertour Team