I spent some really exciting hours with two female and an adult male Kestrels at the end of April.

They did not start incubating yet and were really active. The younger female was constantly harassing the older one, which withstood the attacks in an interestingly bending-forward position and spreading her tail feathers. Apparently, they fought for the nest site as the previous site was closed during the renovation of the building.
Once they fell to the grass in a fierce grip and were literally attempting to kill each other for very long minutes. Later I spotted small blood-stains on both birds. The male repeatedly tried to separate them without any success; however, he even brought a field vole to lure one of the females.

I rarely saw such a fierce and bloody fight between raptors, it was a really interesting experience to witness and document it.

I uploaded some photos the New images gallery.

Best regards,

András

On 23th April I visited a Marsh harrier breeding site. Two older adult and a first adult male and two females used the approximately 5.5 ha area.
They were all busy but I did not observe any aggressive behaviour during my 3-hour staying; the males rarely performed display flights in spite of the excellent weather.
One of the adult females was actively building her nest.

I upload additional photos to New images gallery.

Best regards,   Andras

Less than two weeks ago a 2nd cy Imperial Eagle was found poisoned south of Bükk National Park, Hungary. Fortunately, the bird was given antidote within half an hour and this saved his life.
Since 2008 this has been the third known poisoning incidents in the area resulting in the loss of a total of 3 territorial adult Imperial Eagles.
This time the staff of the Hortobágy Bird Hospital and Bird Park http://www.madarpark.hu provided professional medical treatment to the young eagle till its release near Tard village on 22nd April.

Andras Kleszo, local ranger of the Bükk National Park Directorate, with the rehabilitated eagle.

The bird flew well, soared relatively high and successfully avoided the attacks of a Common Buzzard. He was observed three days later and seemed sound.

Till 2004 we had practically no data about poisoned Imperial Eagles in Hungary. From 2005 the number of poisoning incidents drastically increased and among hundreds of other raptors 45 (!) Eastern Imperial Eagles have been found poisoned since then. Obviously, not only eagles but other birds of prey and mammalian raptors are aimed; however, illegal poisoning became the most significant human-induced mortality factor for eagles besides electrocution on medium-voltage power lines.

You can find more information, unfortunately in Hungarian, on the MME/BirdLife Hungary’s website:
http://www.mme.hu/termeszetvedelem/madarakesmergek.html

Hopefully, the national anti-poisoning project starting from 2012 will reduce significantly the level of  illegal poisoning.

Best wishes,      András

Eagles before incubation

The incubation of most of the Imperial Eagle pairs is well advanced by now and the first chicks can be expected by late April and early May.
I uploaded two photos from early March to the New Images gallery. The mate of the male eagle below was incubating before 15th March.

I hope storms in May and June won’t take a heavy toll on nests and young eagles.

All the best,
András

Last week finally everything clicked together for a 2-day photo-session: the weather (10 cm of snow) and the birds (more than 10 different individuals of Common Bizzards).

Since I can’t get enough of flight shots I spent basically the whole period of 2 days working on them.

Enjoy the pictures!

Gabor

I have checked countless pictures of raptors in books and on the internet and I always concluded that flight shots can’t be surpassed. I know it’s quite subjective but I believe this behavior expresses the best what is a raptor about.

It’s been a while since I planned to take some quality flight pictures of certain species.

Now it’s the turn of the Common Buzzard and you can see some of the latest shots of this species in the New Images gallery.

Enjoy them!

Gabor

Each year in mid-January raptor fans take part in a synchronised winter eagle count called “Sasszinkron” in Hungarian (“sas” = “eagle”). It is organised on the same day in most regions of Hungary and participants use the same method in order to get the most accurate national estimation on the number of wintering eagles.

On 15th January this year as many as 53 volunteers took part in the excellently organised eagle count in the Heves Plain alone and the hard core extended it with a night party…

I walked along one of my usual transects which is around 13 km long. I counted a total of 8 eagles, 2 adult pairs of Imperial Eagles, a distant 3rd or 4th calendar year IE and 3 White-tailed Eagles. An adult IE broke off and carried a poplar twig to its nest.

The weather was extremely mild to mid-January with sometimes stronger wind; raptors clearly enjoyed it, and the recovering Field Vole populations too. I saw a relatively good number of raptors including 4 Rough-legged Buzzards at the same time, a Merlin, a pair of Saker Falcons beside their nest box and 6 Hen Harriers in a 25-30 ha area.

I took distant photos about a “Northern” pale juvenile Common Buzzard.  Buzzards in such plumage are not common in this region or in Hungary as a whole.

On the Heves Grasslands a total of 29 White-tailed Eagles and 28 Imperial Eagles were counted taht day (by L., Tóth, HGPLA, BNPD).

Many thanks to László Tóth (Heves Grassland Protected Landscape Area, Bükk National Park Directorate) for the regional data.

Best regards,

András

Dear Visitor!

We are happy to inform you that we have created a gallery called NEW IMAGES.  Our new pictures will be uploaded here at the size of 900 pixels on the longer side. We will keep these pictures in the gallery for a month and then we move them to the gallery they belong to.

Enjoy them!

Gabor and Andras

We spent a few hours with raptor watching in the north-east of the Heves Plain on 5th January with my friend Attila Bartha. The sky was dull but we saw a relatively good number of birds of prey in spite of the snow cover: 15+ White-tailed Eagles but only two adult Eastern Imperial Eagles perching closely together near their nest. Other highlights were a usual wintering Long-legged Buzzard and three Rough-legged Buzzards.

I was lucky to take some photos of one of the juv Rough-legged Buzzards when it started to hover nearby.

Regards, András

With my wife and the kids we spent the turn of the year in Debrecen and had really great time with my parents.
While driving on the way back home we counted 84 Common Buzzards, 1 Rough-legged Buzzard, 8 Kestrel and 1 imm/ad female Hen Harrier in a 100m-wide transect along the road between Debrecen and Besenyőtelek on 2nd January. This is a 103 km section of the Road 33 crossing the Hortobágy region. Most raptors perched on the trees along the road probably due to the bad weather and the relatively thick snow cover.
I took this Kestrel photo 3 days earlier in the Hortobágy.

Happy 2011 for you all!

Regards,
András