Hide time!!!

Today we have been using the hides, both the Tower Hide and the Fish Pond Hide. It has been an interesting experience even if my back now more or less is broken.

We began the day in the Tower Hide. It is a structure, similar in style to the ordinary hunter towers, 3-4 meter high with a clear window looking out onto a couple of trees. In these trees Zoltan had but different types of nesting boxes. I knew from a previous conversation that there was a Common Kestrel couple using one of the boxes.

The trip there was uneventful but as soon as we arrived one of the Kestrels was spotted. One could also hear a big Rook colony that was 300 meters from the hide. I was really surprised that none of the Rook harassed the Birds of Prey as this is I behavior that I see from Hooded Crows back in Sweden.

Common Kestrel in Hungary, wild bird hide — Common Kestrel portrait 120613

The hours at the hide brought me the fourth bird that I had on my wish list before the trip. That was the European Roller. Zoltan had a nest box here but he wasn´t sure if it was used by anyone. We could now confirm that a Roller couple occupied the box but we also discovered that the Common Kestrel eggs had hatched. This meant there was a steady stream of food being brought back to the nest.

European Roller in Hungary, hide — European Roller 120613

A really good hide with lots of things happening and that was topped with sightings of both the Golden Oriole but also of an Imperial Eagle couple that was keeping track of a nest platform.

After lunch we spent some hours at the Fish Pond Hide. The Hide was located among the reed at one of the bigger Fish Ponds that they have here in Túrkeve. This hide wasn´t really of the same standard as the Tower Hide but one could still get some great photos here. There were a couple of Pygmy Cormorants here all the time and one could see lots of things happening in the skies above the pond but most of them were far away. The most interesting behavior was a Night Heron that had could a Catfish. It needed to remove the mental barbels. The barbels is really hard and can cause the Heron to die if they don´t remove them. I think it took the Heron almost 10 minutes to complete the task using a special log, and I suppose it has used before.

Tomorrow morning will bring more Hoopoe action and I considering asking Zoltan for some more Bee-eaters as I feel there is a huge potential to improve those photos. The afternoon will be spent on a lake an hour’s drive from here and if I am lucky we might sight the White-tailed Eagle.