Danube Delta & Black Sea Coast September 2012 tour report available
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
Ornitholidays Hortobágy autumn tour 2012
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 award at the The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year in Hungary 2012 competition
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
NEW Crane record for the Hortobágy!
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