Another tour, another country, another destination, another species.
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| Imperial eagle |
Weekend wildlife tour to Hortobagy National Park broguht us lots of good emotions and spectacular observations! Drive there is only 6 hours from Cracow (on our way there we cross hunting territory of
imperial eagle which is quite easy to see in the region) and after a long day in work in the evening you can rest in thermal pools, listening to numbers of
frogs and
toads (yellow-bellied toad, tree frogs etc.) croaking or ribbiting.
During the night time just in the place of accommodation it's possible to hear a
Scops owl and
Little owl as well.
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| Marsh harrier |
First day we started from the visit in Hortobagy National Park centre. To get there, we have to drive for about half hour. We drive through the flat terrain with great mosaic of different environments. It's also a good chance to see numbers of
marsh harriers, egrets (little egret, and white egret), larks and
crested larks, warblers and sometimes even
bustards! From there we drove to the Hortobagy Halasto fishponds - place where everyone will see multiple species from very close!
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| Squacco heron |
The best way to travel there is by bike due to great size of the ponds. Almost guaranteed species are:
egrets & herons & bitterns (
squacco heron, little egret, white egret, grey heron, purple heron, night heron, bittern and
little bittern), warblers (
sedge warbler, grasshooper warbler, river warbler, savi's warbler, reed warbler, marsh warbler, great reed warbler...),
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| Ruffs |
ducks (
shovelers, garganeys, pochards, ferruginous duck, mallards...), waders (in e.g
redshanks,
lapwings,
avocets,
snipes,
ruffs), and
spoonbills,
glossy ibises,
bluethroats,
penduline tits,
bearded reedlings,
corn buntings, and many many others!
After few hours of the bird feast we had a dinner in local inn, and drove back with few more steps for plants and insects of the open fields of the Pusta. Evening time we spend listening to the local owls.
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| Roller! |
On the other day we had a drove in search of other colorful birds - mainly
hoopoes and
rollers. We succeed !! Besides those colorful jewells we had also lots of
wheatears,
golden orioles,
turtle doves whinchats,
stonechats,
crested larks,
cuckoos,
red backed shrikes,
great grey shrikes and even
lesser grey shrike! We had also numerous opportunity to take a look at a local species of cow (grey cattle) and sheep (Racka sheep).
In the afternoon hours we start our way back to much colder Poland with birds song still loud in our ears!
Selected photos from our tour:
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| Puszta |
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| Night heron |
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| Savi's warbler |
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| Crested skylark |
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| Purple heron |
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| Grey cattle |
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| Racka sheep |
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| Glossy ibis |
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| Corn bunting |
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| Lesser grey shrike |
More photos at:
LINK
