There is a wide selection of possibilities for those who wish to photograph Cranes in Europe. No doubt the Hortobágy National Park – being the largest gathering place for Common Cranes anywhere in Europe or in the World – offers a wide variety of ´Crane´ subjects. Sakertour is based in the Hortobágy so naturally we know our area very well and wanted to offer Crane photography. It took us several years however to be able to present a ´Crane Photography Tour´ which is somewhat uniguqe on the market. Finally we came up with the idea of drinking and bathing Cranes! This is a special subject at the very beginning of the Crane migration when the numbers are still low but the weather is still good. This is how our early September Crane Tour was born. 2013 was the real test how much this tour can be sustainable on a yearly basis and we must say the test was successfull (participants and myself certainly had filled a few cards!)! Cranes are just amazing andif you are interested to see them close up do not hesitate to book a short tour with us – the 2014 tour dates now online!

Drinking Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Crane in flight (Photo: János Oláh)

Drinking Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Crane (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

2013 season was really fantastic in the Danube Delta and all of our guests went home satisfied with many superb images on their memory cards.  

We already uploaded several images to the gallery but now you can find an overview about May and June Photo Tours separately in our Delta Blog and a selection of best moments in frame as well. 

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who made it possible to run all these tours in this superb place. See you next year!

Sakertour team

Photographers while working inside the photo boat (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

White Pelican in focus (Photo: Joan Roca)

Another new tour has just been uploaded to our website! Please check out the itinerary HERE! This fantastic tour is a true mammal photography adventure where we will be photographing Carpathian BrownBears in Transylvania and then will try to capture Golden Jackals on our cards in the Danube Delta. This tour will only run once in 2014 from 22 to 29 March.

Our 8 days tour is running in cooperation with Skua Nature of Italy!

Golden Jackals in March 2012 in the Danube Delta (Carlo Galliani / image courtesy of Skua Nature). A dominant male in the front and a female in the background. You can see the scars on the male as early spring is the time of territorial fights!

Carpathian Brown Bear in March 2012 in Transylvania (Attila Szilágyi)

Sakertour team

Our leader Sándor Borza completed the report of his highly successful 2013 tour. This is our longest birdwatching tour covering all the basic habitats of the Carpathian Basin and visiting three countries! Please read the report!

Barred Warbler is a fantastic looking Sylvia warbler and readily seen on this tour (Photo: János Oláh).

Sakertour team

After two years of work and one year testing finally we launched our Brown Bear Hide-Photography tour. Please see the tour description!

Wild Carpathian Brown Bear (Photo: Gábor Simay)

We have two dates for 2014 online!

Sakertour team

Its been a long while we updated our website with any news as all of us has been very busy with Spring works!

Our spring birding tours in Hungary and Transylvania (and in Slovakia) were very successfull this year. Our main transect tours all have seen over 200 species and included lots of goodies like Ural Owl, Tengmalm´s owl, Eurasian Pygmy Owl, Three-toed and White-backed Woodpeckers, Capercaillie, Little Crake, Corncrake, Wallcreeper etc. The 31 days of May every year seem to fly away in a blink of an eye and it was the same in 2013. Lots of images and the fine memories remain…

A little selection of images from Spring 2013:

Capercaillie female in Transylvania (Photo: János Oláh)

Eurasian Pygmy Owl in Transylvania by tour participant (Photo: Nigel Moore)

Three-toed Woodpecker in Transylvania by tour participant (Photo: Nigel Moore)

Little Crake male (Photo: János Oláh)

Wallcreeper (Photo: János Oláh)

We will be updating our Hungary Photography Blog soon about May and June actions as the season is ending now. It was busy but rewarding spring in Hungary for bird-photography!

Our team in Romania is still working with photo-tours but no doubt a Danube Delta up-date is also coming up!

We also have an interesting selection of new tours coming up for 2014! So keep an eye on our website!

Sakertour team

We had a successful trip with a private group to the Delta with over 180 recorded species including Levant Sparrowhawk, Saker Falcon, Pied Wheater, Paddyfield Warbler, Woodchat Shrike, Sombre Tit.

You can see more images here:

http://birdwatchingdanubedelta.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/early-may-trip/

Male Levant Sparrowhawk

Sakertour team

We had our spring tour in the last days of April and first days of May when the weather was warm and sunny all week long. Though the weather was dry, plenty of temporary wetlands remained after the wet winter, which ensured us great birding in the Hortobágy. In this nice weather even most of the late arriving birds had already occupied their territories so we could record more then 170 species during the week!

We had great views of Ural Owls even one with a mouse prey in its beak, singing male Barred Warblers, Eastern Imperial Eagles and many woodpeckers in the foothills. In the lowlands we had a rather early migrant Broad-billed Sanpiper, singing Moustached Warblers, displaying Great Bustrads and great views of Saker Falcon.

Ural Owl (Photo: Gábor Simay)

Sakertour team

As usual Spring arrived fast and suddenly all the beauties of nature is available. Our photography tours has started and our photographers enjoying great opportunities from our hides! Please see our Hortobágy Photography blog for more images.

White-winged Terns are a great subject in 2013 (Photo: János Oláh)

Sakertour team

Some of our team members has spent the last weeks in the Danube Delta area to get as many information as possible about the state of the places and birds before our tours. The birding tours are due to start in a few days while the photography season will start in two weeks time!

You can see more images in our Danube Delta Photo and Birdwatching Blog.

We also have our 2014 tour dates online now for the birding tours as well as for the photography tours!

Citrine Wagtail is a rather scrace migrant but up to 4 were seen (Photo: Gábor Simay)

A male Woodchat Shrike – rare breeding bird – has been located recently (Photo: Gábor Simay)

Spring has arrived to the Danube Delta (Photo: Gábor Simay)

Sakertour team