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

On the 11th and 12th of July the most well known Hungarian nature-photo organization naturArt (http://www.naturart.hu) has a weekend in our hides.

Sakertour is a sponsore of the The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year (naturArt) competition in 2009 and also offers a weekend for all the members of the naturArt group in our hides.

More will follow with images!

Sakertour team

It is really summer now with temperature up to 35C and the photo season is ending. Since mid April we had many photographers in our hides from all over Europe. Everybody enjoyed the photo themes and we shall be uploading many pictures to our galleries in the coming month!

Visiting photographers in the heron flight tower  Photo: János Oláh

One of our most popular hide was the Red-footed Falcon Tower which is still active and the last falcon chicks will probably fledge around the 20th of July. Take a look at a few image from this hide: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=3

Many photographers had excellent time in our Passerine Drinking Hide too where 47 species was recorded this Spring including goodies like Black Woodpecker, Middle Spotted Woodpecker (daily), Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Collared Flycatcher (daily) and many others. Take a look at a few image from this hide: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=24&author=&text=

The Pygmy Cormorant Hide was excellent throughout the Spring with a different face every day. At the moment it is still very good with many herons and egrets visiting it. Images: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=5&author=&text=

The Panorama Hide was only good for about a month as we had a very dry Spring so the shallow wetlands quickly dried out. The latest images will be uploaded soon.

Rollers were great this Spring too. We had different locations and at the moment one hide still operating until about 10 July, Take a look at a few images: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=26&author=&text=

Also we used a few mobile hides and blindes. Mainly for Avocet mating and then later for Hoopoe. A few nice image were taken. Take a look: http://www.sakertour.com/hidegallery.php?hide=25&author=&text=

The Heron Flight Tower is not an actual hide but a few hours were spent here on most tours and it was very popular!

Pygmy Cormorant     Photo: János Oláh

Night Heron    Photo: János Oláh

We finished our nine-day Ukrainian tour organised by Liberty Tour. The tour focussed especially on the Crimean Peninsula. We were welcome by the endless and treeless steppe dressed in blue-yellow flowers with real sunny summer weather, and this perfect birding spell was disturbed only by smaller showers in one afternoon.

The days spent in the Crimea had a true eastern European atmosphere, although the vast habitats proved that we were somewhere in the easternmost corner of Europe. Besides flat and hilly steppes, extensive, brackish water lagoons, steppe lakes, limestone gorges, dry hornbeam-oak and coniferous forests, reed beds, patches of planted woods and seashores were visited by us.

Eastern European migrating and breeding species are really common here, such as Marsh Harrier, Red-footed Falcon, Crane, Black-winged Stilt, Little Gull, Mediterranean Gull, Scops Owl, Hoopoe, Bee-eater, Syrian Woodpecker, Tawny Pipit, Black-headed Wagtail, Great Reed Warbler, Icterine Warbler, Collared Flycatcher, Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Grey Shrike, Golden Oriole, Corn Bunting, Ortolan Bunting, Squacco Heron, Purple Heron, Glossy Ibis, Long-legged Buzzard, Honey Buzzard, Barred Warbler, Hobby, Avocet, Collared Pratincole, Kentish Plover, Brood-billed Sandpiper, Roller, Thrush Nightingale, Penduline Tit, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Great Bustard, Short-toed Lark, Red-necked Grebe, Alpine Swift, Rock Bunting, Firecrest, Black Stork, Rock Thrush, Siskin, Crossbill and Pygmy Cormorant.

Due to the closeness of the Black Sea, some marine species or species confined to the lagoons like Shellduck, Sandwich Tern, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Sanderling, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Little Tern, Caspian Tern, Arctic Skua, Yelkoun Shearwater and Shag are also representatives of the avifauna here.

A real speciality is the presence of some real steppe range species that make the list of observed species extremely interesting, such as White Pelican, Ruddy Shellduck, Pallas´s Gull, Calandra Lark, Slender-billed Gull, Gull-billed Tern, Paddyfield Warbler, Booted Eagle, Demoiselle Crane, Little Bustard, Isabelline Wheatear, Rose-coloured Starling, Black-headed Bunting, Pied Wheatear, Black and Griffon Vulture and Citrine Wagtail.

It was a superb tour with 181 species recorded.

The Sakertour Team

Slender-billed Gulls

In a two full and two half day trip we visited the Zemlén-hills and the higher mountains around Rejdova (Slovakia), while the last evening and the next morning were spent in the Hortobágy with a couple from the US. In the first afternoon we managed to see 4 Ural Owls, White-backed Woodpecker and Collared Flycatcher. The following day despite the continous rain we saw a Nutcracker and had prolonged and very close views of a Three-toed Woodpecker. We also managed to see 6 other species of woodpeckers, Corncrake, Short-toed, Lesser Spottes and Eastern Imperial Eagles. Despite of the windy weather, some of the River Warblers were still singing form a pearch, while Barred Warblers were buisy to carry food for their nestlings. In the Hortobágy, beside many other we saw a diplaying Aquatic Warbler and a fine male Great Bustrad.

Simay Gábor

Lesser Spotted Eagle                                             Simay Gábor

Juv. Bearded Tit                     Simay Gábor

We had a fantastic 8 days tour with a very keen party of Lancashire birders in the Hortobágy and Zemplén from 16th to 23rd May, 2009. We were birding from dawn to dusk most days and recorded 183 species. Our final list although had not included Dunnock and Grey Wagtail but it was ´still´ impressive :).

Best 10 birds:

Dalmatian Pelican

Baillon´s Crake

Black-winged Pratincole

Terek Sandpiper

Broad-billed Sandpiper

Great Snipe

Ural Owl

Great Bustard

Aquatic Warbler

Moustached Warbler

Our tour started in the Zemplén Hills where we soon secured the most sought-after birds like White-backed Woodpecker and Ural Owl.

Ural Owl Photo: János Oláh

We also manged to see all the possible woodpeckers and had superb views of White-tailed Eagle, Eastern Imperial Eagle and Lesser Spotted Eagles too. From the passerines the Collared Flycatcher, River Warbler and Barred Warbler were the most appreciated.

Collared Flycatcher Photo: János Oláh

One morning after a superb encounter with Eurasian Eagle Owl we even had time to look for the rare Zephyre Blue (Plebejus sephirus) butterfly.

Zephyre Blue Photo: Zoltán Petrovics

After an action-packed two days we were birding in the Hortobágy National Park. Our first afternoon in the Bihar Plains gave us unforgettable memories with Great Snipe and Baillon´s Crake within 5 minutes! The latter is a rare breeding bird in Hungary and it was a new bird even for one of our senior guide Gábor Simay!

Baillon´s Crake Photo: Róbert Ványi

The next few days we managed to gather a few other rarities in addition to the fantastic resident birds like the Aquatic Warbler below!

Aquatic Warbler Photo: János Oláh

I must say this was a tour when everything was going well and I am sure there are not many tours in Europe where you can get shorebirds like Black-winged Pratincole, Great Snipe, Broad-billed Sandpiper and Terek Sandpiper just as a supporting cast.

Terek Sandpiper Photo: Tim Davie

This customized tour will surely be long remembered for the participants and also show you that the Sakertour team will get you the best possible birds available on your visit!

Sakertour team