Birds in 2008

Last year we began our tours at our ricefields. Black storks, cranes, herons and waders looked for food there. The summer was interesting as well: our red-footed falcons and sakers were feeding the chicks. The autumn sky was noisy by the cranes and geese. In Last year the Hungarobirds team observed 268 bird species. You can download the checklist here: www.hungarobirds.com/eveslista

Study trip to England

Next month two of our staff are visiting to England. Our friends will guide us into the English birding and twicher culture and practice. We are visiting to the Wetland Centre in London, a few reservoirs and another high value nature reserves around London.
We visiting to the other effect as well: to meet our partners, to seek new ones and to do promotion for our tours.

Long-eared Owls in Túrkeve

January is a real harsh winter month in Hungary. The temperature is near - 15 Celsius. In this time the Long-eared Owls come into the towns, so we can find this species easily near by our home. In Túrkeve the birds roost on the trees of the High square, where we observed 248 owls last week.

Harsh winter in the Hungarian Great Plan

Today we had a guided birdwatching tour into the winter Puszta. In the morning there was -15 Celsius, but the temperature was frosty in the afternoon as well. Buntings, thrushes, finches were the most common birds, but we saw a few White-tailed Eagles, Black Woodpeckers and Great White Egrets too. The trees had a white rime wintercoat, the lakes a 20 cm thick ice, so after thise frosty experience we loved to drink a hot mulled wine.

Feathers: Identification for bird conservation

I would like to announce that the guide "Feathers: Identification for birdconservation" by Marian Cieslak and Boleslaw Dul is available via internet at new price. It is an excellent guide for bird feathers identification by Marian Cieslakand Boleslaw Dul as an effect of 15 years of their research and studies. Theguide is illustrated with over 250 photos and feathers are presented as awing formula of 60 species of bird of which 38 are included in Annex I ofthe EU's Birds Directive. This book mainly covers diurnal species of birdsof prey (Falconiformes) and owls (Strigiformes) and species wich featherscould be confused with them.More information and how to order the book you can find here:

http://www.naturapublishing.eu/

The book is also available in NHBS

http://www.nhbs.com/feathers_tefno_150782.html

The first Waxwing this year

Today I checked the Long-eared owls in our town. The result: 104 Long-eared and 1 Short-eared owls. When I finished the owl spot, suddenly I heard a familiar call... Then I noticed the bird: my first Bohemian Waxwing of this year.

Nest monitoring in our local area

After a long planning we began a nest monitoring in our local area. We followed the lead of the National Park: we had to write a note about the nest, a GPS position, type of the tree, what kind of birds of prey uses the nest. The enthusiastic team roamed about the riverside of the Hortobágy-Berettyó. We worked all day long, but we had a pass mark: we found a few buzzard and goshawk nests.