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Highlights
Wonderful European bird watching
The best time of the year
The Great Hungarian puszta
Lake Tisza & the Bukk Hills
Discovering Hungarian wines!
Outline Itinerary
Day
1. Arrive Budapest. Transfer to the Great Hungarian Plain
2. Bird watching at the fishponds
3. Woodland birding
4. Bird watching on the Hungarian puszta
5. Visit to the Hortobagy fishponds
6. Birding the rice paddies, Lake Tisza boat trip and to the Bukk Hills
7. Bird watching in the Bukk Hills
8. Return to Budapest to depart Hungary
This itinerary can be tailor made to your interests.
Cost
Please contact us for prices and a full day-to-day itinerary
Departure Dates
May - August to your requirements
Two hours from Budapest and you are on the Great Hungarian plain, the puszta. In this area there is some outstanding bird watching and a short walk from you log cabin you may find golden oriole, nightingale, wryneck, red-backed shrike, a number of woodpecker species and a tempting number of other species to kick off your week's holiday.
One of the highlights of this area are the fishponds of both Hortobagy National Park and Kecskeri Nature Reserve that provide open water, marsh and reed beds. Among the birds sought here are ferruginous duck, whiskered terns, bittern, little bittern, purple heron, night heron and squacco heron, bluethroat, penduline and bearded tits.
With a day in the local woodlands and forests you should find black and Syrian woodpeckers, golden orioles, spotted and pied flycatchers and also visit a European bee-eater nesting location. Venturing out on the famous puszta itself you will discover the grasslands and from a number of hides and gentle walks and might observe saker and red-footed falcons, hen harriers, hobby, rough-legged, long-legged and common buzzard, white-tailed eagles, Steppe eagle, Imperial eagle, short-toed eagle, European roller, hoopoe, lesser grey shrike and with luck stone curlew. On a walk close to Devavanya from the national park headquarters for Koros-Maros National Park and home to the Great Bustard Reserve you will see great bustard and learn about their conservation.
Moving on you will discover the wetlands of the local rice paddies where during May and June there are tens of thousands of ducks and wading birds feeding and a variety of warbler species can be seen. In the afternoon take a boat trip in search of further bird life on Lake Tisza before an evening transfer to the Bukk Hills to overnight.
The following day in the hills will be in search of further woodpecker species including white-backed, middle-spotted and grey. Also present in the forests are wryneck and flycatchers including collared and red-breasted flycatchers. The hills are also habitat for eagle, Scops and Ural owls whilst in the fields the target is corncrake. A final night is spent in the hills tasting wine and reflecting on the week's bird watching before returning direct to Budapest airport a couple of hours away.
