Hungary: birds and music Wednesday 5 August to Saturday 15 August 2009 with Bryan Bland and Amanda Holden as leaders.
Cost: £2440 plus about £170 for flights Click here for explanation of price breakdown Price includes good tickets for all operas and concerts. Maximum group size: 16 with 2 leaders. The second named leader will only join the tour if there are more than 8 participants. |
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Imagine a music festival with some of the best European orchestras and folk ensembles performing high-quality concerts in some truly wonderful castles, churches, and palaces. Then imagine that this location is in the very heart of the best birding habitats to be found in eastern Europe, including the world famous Hortobágy National Park – a ‘must’ for every birdwatcher interested in European birds. Imagine too that the timing is perfect not only for a selection of special breeding birds but also for the peak passage of waders and other migrants. Well, this combination really does exist in the magical country of Hungary. Some 90 miles from the Hortobágy, itself a small piece of Asia inside Europe, sleeps a quiet and forested landscape, the Zemplen foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. This wonderful mosaic of small peaks, forested slopes, beautiful valleys, meandering rivers, tiny villages and castles creates an unforgettable atmosphere of peace and tranquillity. The Carpathian castles are a feature of the area and it is within this rich cultural setting that the annual Zemplen Art Festival takes place. Now in its fourteenth year, the world-class programme of music, together with the unique scenery and excellent birdwatching, will provide a rich and unforgettable experience. The music is wide-ranging, the selection of birds is similarly comprehensive, and by staying at just two centres we are assured of a relaxing but rewarding holiday, full of birds and music – but with ample opportunity to opt out and enjoy the facilities of our luxurious (former palace) hotel.Day 1: The tour begins with a flight from London to Budapest. Three hours drive from Budapest airport is our hotel in the Hortobágy National Park and the steppe grassland where we’ll look for birds such as Long-legged Buzzard, Red-footed Falcon, and Lesser Grey Shrike. Night at Trófea Hunting Lodge, Nádudvar, with Little Bittern and Kingfisher right outside the reception area. Day 2: The Hortobágy fishpond complex is the birding Mecca of the national park. Today, from the observation towers and surrounding areas, we should see more than a hundred species including all the European herons and, with luck, Glossy Ibis. Pygmy Cormorants should festoon the trees and there will be great flocks of migratory waders on the drained and freshly exposed mud, including Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Spotted Redshank, and various sandpipers. In the afternoon we’ll visit some natural and reconstructed lakes to look for other waders such as Broad-billed and Marsh Sandpipers, Red-necked Phalarope, and Temminck’s Stint. In the evening we’ll be entertained during our slambuc tasting and an al fresco meal at our hotel by the Forget-me-not zither ensemble. Night at Trófea. Day 3: After breakfast, we’ll spend a short time birding at the small lake near our hotel and then drive to Darassa in the northern part of the national park. This is the best area for raptors as the steppe is full of Susliks, a major prey item. We’ll look for Imperial Eagle and Saker here, a Goshawk may appear above the forested patches and we might see White-tailed and Lesser Spotted Eagles. We’ll then leave the Hortobágy National Park and travel to the Carpathian foothills, via Debrecen Great Wood, for Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Short-toed Treecreeper, and a variety of passerines. We will reach our luxury hotel (Degenfeld Palace) in Tarcal in time to shower and change before setting off to Sárospatak for dinner and the opening performance of the Zemplen Art Festival in the castle yard. Over the years these gala orchestral concerts have brought us some real treats – from a truly surround-sound performance of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols to enacted scenes (not just the familiar suite) from Kodaly’s Háry János and we have enjoyed symphonies, piano concertos, and violin concertos by Beethoven, Mozart, Dvorák, Handel, Brahms and Shostakovich. Days 4-8: The following five days will be a wonderful mix of birds and music. We’ll visit protected tranquil forests of the Zemplen valleys where we’ll search the dense canopies for Ural Owl. There will be other forest specialists to look for including Black, Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted, Great Spotted, Grey-headed and, maybe, White-backed Woodpeckers. Abandoned quarries are home to Eurasian Eagle Owl, Blue Rock Thrush, Serin and Black Redstart, while a few remaining Bee-eaters should still be found around the steep clay walls, and the bushes should be full of migrating passerines including perhaps Wryneck, Woodlark, and Barred Warbler. Raptors patrol the skies above the wide open valleys of the Zemplen Hills, where we should see Honey Buzzard and Imperial, Short-toed and Golden Eagles, while the floodplain meadows and gallery forests of the River Bodrog is where we can expect to see White and Black Storks, Black Kite, Ferruginous Duck and marsh terns while White-tailed Eagle and Hobby are distinct possibilities. The musical offerings are equally sublime. In recent years we have been treated to afternoon concerts of ravishing music by de Lassus, Monteverde, Purcell, Schütz, Dalla Casa, Lotti, Pachelbel, Albironi, Pergolesi, and Surianus among others. There were evenings when we were able to sit back, close our eyes and, in the most perfect of settings, allow the music of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Schubert, Rachmaninov, Bartok, Vivaldi, and Barber to waft over us. There is always the magnificent Renaissance dinner in Sáropatak Castle courtyard to look forward to, while for sheer variety three contrasting concerts in one day could include a magnificently sonorous Ukrainian choir, a baroque guitar recital, and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. In recent years we have also enjoyed the odd opera. Nights at the Degenfeld Palace, Tarcal. Days 9-10: We spend our last two days back at our hotel in the Hortobágy. We’ll make a special effort to seek out some of the secretive birds that live in the reed fringes of the numerous fishponds such as Water Rail, Little and Spotted Crakes, and Penduline and Bearded Tits, and we’ll explore the grazed grasslands for Stone-curlew, migrant Dotterel, Montagu’s Harrier, and Tawny Pipit. At the edge of the steppe, on the freshly cut alfalfa fields, Great Bustards should be gathering in small groups while flocks of Yellow-legged Gulls may contain an impressive Great Black-headed Gull. For our special farewell dinner, complete with folk dancing and traditional music, we’ll travel over the puszta by horse and cart to a remote farm. Nights at Trófea Hunting Lodge. Day 11: After breakfast we’ll set off on our journey back across the steppe, stopping to enjoy once more the birds and landscapes of the previous ten days or perhaps we’ll end our tour with some sightseeing in Budapest before driving to the airport for our flight back to London where the tour ends.
E-mail or phone +44 (0)1767 262522 for availability.
Last updated June 2008
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The Sunbird sponsored observation tower overlooking the Hortobágy fishponds...
from where we can see a variety of storks, herons and egrets.
An ancient well and low farm buildings break the skyline of the Great Hungarian Plain where, as well as Great Bustards (above), we can see...
Dotterel on migration and...
Short-toed Eagles hovering overhead.
The musical content varies from such offerings as the Jubilate Girls' Choir in Hercegkut Church to...
a Bach concert by the Franz Erkel Chamber Orchestra...
or a performance on the steps of the Károlyi Castle by the musicians who played the ship's orchestra in the film, Titanic.
Always popular is the outdoor Renaissance banquet in the courtyard of the Sárospatak Castle, where close by beechwoods are home to...
secretive Ural Owls.
Photograph of Great Bustard by János Oláh. All others taken by Patty Briggs and Bryan Bland during recent tours.
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