Great Reed Warbler - Copyright © Jon Hornbuckle

Roy Frost and I visited Hungary and Slovakia for a week at the invitation of my Sakertour friends, Zoltán Ecsedi and János Oláh. The timing was a little late, mid-April – end May being the optimum, because they were occupied with guiding bird tours till then, but was very successful. We saw all of our main target species well, most notably Pygmy, Ural and Eagle Owls, Imperial and White-tailed Eagles, Saker, Red-footed Falcon, Wallcreeper, with bonuses of Steppe Eagle, Little Crake, Corncrake, Red-necked Phalarope, Ortolan Bunting and Lady’s Slipper Orchids. Great Bustard was the only significant dip (due to high vegetation and limited time). We could have seen Three-toed Woodpecker had we wanted, White-backed a few weeks earlier, and breeding White-winged Black-Tern and Tengmalm’s Owl in "normal" years – this being a particularly bad one for them.

We flew with BA, booked a few days beforehand through www.lastminute.com, for the good price of £138 and booked a car through www.holidayautos.com, group A for £214. The car-hire was sub-let to National; we were given a group B Skoda Fabia which was ideal, and paid an extra $3 a day for second driver and $15 for permit to enter Slovakia and Romania. We were also asked to pay a $100 insurance excess because of a dent caused by a low-flying Pheasant, which would be refunded back home by Holiday Autos, although at the time of writing this seems to have been waived.

We spent the first 3 days in the Hortobagy NP, guided by Zoli, staying cheaply at a pleasant guesthouse in Balmazujvaros, and eating well in local restaurants. Then János took over and we drove to Slovakia for the owls and Wallcreeper, assisted one day by Bohumil Murin, an excellent guide/ teacher/ surveyor of Ruzomberok. We returned to Hungary to the Zemplen Hills and Debrecen Great Forest, staying in Janos’s house in Debrecen. We had hoped to visit a village in Romania where large numbers of Rose-coloured Starlings were reported to be nesting but when its location was eventually discovered, it was too far to do on a day trip on bad roads. However, fired by the thoughts of seeing Romania we decided to cross the border (which took about 30 mins each way) to look for Ortolan Bunting, a rare bird in Hungary, and duly saw it at János’s site by a large reservoir. On the last day we explored Kiskunsag NP, an hour south of Budapest, by ourselves and failed to find Great Bustard, Kentish Plover and Collared Pratincole which occur there.

           
Red-footed Falcon                        Ural Owl                                    Pygmy Owl
All Photographs Copyright © Jon Hornbuckle

This is certainly some of the best birding in Europe but a good guide is essential if you want to see all the specialities. János and Zoli (of Sakertour, saker@matavnet.hu, ground agents for Birdquest and Sunbird), to whom we are most grateful, are brilliant and speak excellent English. I am willing to arrange a week’s tour with one of them in the spring of 2002, for a total cost of £750, including all meals and transport from Heathrow (cf Birdwatch £995 with a lesser guide and other companies more). It may also be possible to add on a couple of days in Romania where Brown Bears can be observed from hides in daylight, but the additional cost will be high because of Romanian demands. An October tour is also worthwhile, to see Lesser White-fronted and Red-breasted Geese, many 1000s of Cranes, White-tailed Eagles, etc. Please contact me if interested.

Syrian Woodpecker - Copyright © Jon Hornbuckle

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