Hawfinch
As well as the cranes this exciting tour offers special resident birds like Great Bustard, Saker Falcon, White-tailed and Eastern Imperial Eagles, eight species of woodpecker including White-backed, Grey-headed and Black, and winter visitors such as Rough-legged Buzzard and Great Grey Shrike. The numerous wildfowl present should include some of the rare Lesser White-fronted Goose, rather more Greater Whitefronts and some Tundra and maybe Taiga Bean Geese. Our first two night stay in a familyrun small hotel in the hills can produce Black Redstart, Hawfinch and Black Woodpecker in the garden! Birdwatching nearby in the Bûkk National Park we’ll look for Black, Grey-headed, Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted and White-backed Woodpeckers in the area’s deciduous woods. Gerard specializes in this family and will offer great insights not only into woodpecker behaviour and identification, but also how to interpret the signs of each species. Syrian Woodpecker is usually found in and around villages. Other birds in these scenic hills include Eastern Imperial Eagle, Goshawk, Hawfinch and Rock Bunting. We’ll also take an optional visit to an excellent wine-cellar this evening as this is one of Hungary’s very best wine areas. Today we leave the hills and forests and head onto the Great Plain. First we’ll stop in the Heves grasslands and see some of our first lowland birds of the tour. Finches and buntings are beginning to flock up in October and we may locate our first Saker or Great Bustards today. Later we’ll scan the vast waters of Lake Tisza for gulls, grebes and wildfowl. This evening, we’ll wait just before dusk at key spots to see the arrival of the noisy flocks of cranes which come in from feeding fields to roost. This event is without doubt one of Europe’s great bird spectacles. We can expect to see and hear many thousands both in the air in family parties of three and in lines of many hundreds and in trumpeting groups in pre-roost fields. Today we will spends all of our time in the famous Hortobágy National Park. Habitats here include fish-pond systems where geese, ducks and Common Cranes roost and Marsh Harriers and White-tailed Eagles hunt. Drained ponds host passage waders and the reed beds Penduline and Bearded Tits. The grasslands are hunting grounds for raptors such as Saker, Merlin and Long-legged, Rough-legged and Common Buzzards. Flocks of Great Bustards and Stone Curlew also reside here. Little Owls are quite common and Long-eared Owls are often beginning to roost in numbers in this season. Occasionally flocks of Dotterel up to one hundred strong can be found in traditional places on the drier Hortobágy steppe. These same areas often host parties of Lapland Bunting. This evening there will be another opportunity to watch the crane spectacle. After breakfast, we depart for Budapest with birding en route as flight times permit. On previous tours this has enabled us to see Buff-breasted Sandpiper and an amazing flock of sixty six Great Bustard.
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Introduction
