The Hungarian Ornithological Society (MME) made the 16th Hungarian Eagle count in mid January. This time it was also the 2nd Pannonian Eagle Census which was coordinated by MME but included six countries and 20 different participating organizations. During this event over 488 observers counted wintering eagles all over Hungary, Austria, Cezch Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia. The most common eagle was White-tailed Eagle with 992-1060 individuals and about 725-748 was counted in Hungary alone. The Hortobágy region had 75 White-tailed Eagles of which around 30 were counted at the feeding stations operated by Sakertours. However the Hortobágy area always have more eagles in February and just one single feeding station held 46 White-tailed Eagles yesterday (8th February).

This eagle count resulted in 509-538 Eastern Imperial Egales of which 397-411 was observed in Hungary.  Also a few Golden and Greater Spotted Eagles were observed and an additional 11 000 individual raptors of 13 other species was counted.

Although these numbers may seem high, eagles are still fairly rare. Even on the most densly populated areas only an average of 4,5 White-tailed Eagles and 2,5 Imperial Eagles were recorded in every 100 km2 stated the summary of the survey.

Sakertour team

White-tailed Eagles in the Hortobágy area which has the most concentrated number of White-tailed Eagle sin the Pannonian region. Images by Márk Kovács.

As we promised all our birding tour reports from 2018 is now available on our website. If you would like to join one of our birding tours to Hungary, Slovakia or Romania in 2019 you can read and study all the recent tours from these regions. For further informations and results of each (from previous years) please contact our office at: sakertour.office@gmail.com

You can ready and download the reports HERE.

Birders in the Dobrudja region of Romania in 2018.

Sakertour team

We are glad to announce that after several years of work now we have Saker Falcon regularly visiting our Buzzard Hide in the Hortobágy area. In the winter of 2017 / 2018 they did show up a few times between January and March and now they returned for the 2018 / 2019 winter. In December they were regular though not daily visitors. If there is cold weather there is very good chance to photograph this superb falcon species from this hide. We believe January and February 2019 is a great time to come for those who after this special subject!

We still have places available for some of the White-tailed Eagle Photography Tours in January and February 2019. The Buzzard Hide is also included in the available hides, so these tours are one of the cheapest way to join for a few days photography which includes the Saker Falcon: http://www.sakertour.com/photo-tour-calendar.php

However if you interested just in the Saker Falcon please get in touch with our office and we can answer about availabilities!

Sakertour Team

Female Saker Falcon in flight in December 2018 (János Oláh)

Male Saker Falcon in the snow, in December 2018 (Attila Szilágyi)

Portrait of female Saker Falcon, in December 2018 (János Oláh)

Female Saker Falcon in front of Hide in December 2018 (János Oláh)

We have just uploaded our report of the birding tour to Danube Delta in May 2018. In the coming days we will be uploading all our 2018 tour reports which is available on the website at the Trip Report section or at the relevant tours. Please take a look! Come and join us in 2019!

White Pelican in the Danube Delta in 2018 (Photo: Gábor Simay)

Our Bear Hides are very good in late summer and early autumn. We regularly run these short tours since 2016 in the early September period. We have had excellent bear activity and in the last three years the shy Hazel Grouse has also been regularly photographed from the bear hides. Our 2018 bear photography tour just ended and everybody was very happy with the results! About 9 different bears were seen and photographed and there were 3 different visits from Hazel Grouse to our hides too. We have also been stalking and photographing these beautiful grouses along the tranquil forest tracks – sometimes several seen in a day.

Now as we will be launching our Bears & Birds Photography Tour from April 2020 (you will find this tour on our website from March 2019) we have also decided to rename our short bear tour in the autumn as Autumn Bear and Hazel Grouse Photography Tour. Our 2019 dates has also been published. Come to Transylvania with us in September 2019!

Carpathian Brown Bear in September (Photo: János Oláh)

Hazel Grouse in front of the bear hide in September 2018 (Photo: Zoltán Baczó)

Landscape photography can be excellent in early September (Photo: Zoltán Nagy)

Hazel Grouse from our bear hide in September 2017 (Photo: tour participant Pál Marchhart)

Sakertour team

Year 2018 brought us some really nice birding surprizes and one reason was the Rose-coloured Starlings breeding in two places along the west coast of Black Sea, in Romania and Bulgaria. The romanian colony was as big as 2500 breeding pairs. The breeding started in the end of May and the last chicks left the colony in the end of July. Last time this species has bred in 2003 in Romania!

The colony. The Starlings has bred under rocks. (Photo: Beat Rüegger)

Displaying male Rosy Starling (Photo: Beat Rüegger)

Male and female Rosy Starling at the colony (Photo: Beat Rüegger)

Sakertour team

We run only one tour to Transylvania for bear photography in the autumn. It is a great time to see these magnificent creatures and our 2017 tour was a great success again! We enjoyed several super encounters with a total of 22 bears in 3 different hides in the course of 3 days plus had some exciting extra events such as Hazel Grouse showing for two consecutive days in front of the hides. For some lucky photographers it stayed around for 40 minutes! Wow! We also had excellent landscape photography and a selection of birds around our drinking hides. It is a short but very exciting tour!

In 2018 we will run this tour again from 7 to 11 September and more informations you can see HERE.

Carpathian Brown Bear drinking (Photo: János Oláh)

Male Hazel Grouse in front of our hide (Photo: Zoltán Nagy)

Sakertour team

We have just uploaded the report of our latest Grand Tour to the Central Europe! We have been running this Hungary, Slovakia & Transylvania tour for 6 years now and it yielded amazing results in 2017 too. We got all European breeding woodpeckers, seven species of owls and lot more! You can read about it here as Gábor Simay reports on this years expereinces! We also have our 2018 dates and the tour already has a guaranteed departure. Come and join us for some great birding with a newly updated itinerary!!

Collared Flycatcher (János Oláh)