Birds in Your Backyard: Europe (Part 3)

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Europe (Part 3)

After the visiting the nature reserve in Ostia (see previous post) we headed to the airport, and after a two hour flight we landed in Budapest, where we stayed with relatives for a day or two.

Eurasian Jay

Hooded Crow

We walked around the city center of Budapest for a while, there weren't too many birds to be seen, but lots of incredible buildings!

Magnificent parliament of Budapest

Wood Pigeon

After our visit in Budapest we drove out to the smaller town of Eger on the beautiful Hungarian countryside. It has a population of 50,000 and is situated at the foot of the Bukk Mountains. Almost as soon as we got out of the car on the overcast day we were greeted by a lovely Song Thrush.

Song Thrush

I enjoyed walking around the small town. You could walk from the edge to the center of town in only a matter of minutes. We frequently walked to a nearby park to look for birds. Some of the birds we saw there included Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Song Thrush, Hawfinch and Eurasian Tree Sparrows.
A special treat was two Scops Owls which we heard while walking in the park at night. When we first heard them we had no idea what they were. We thought it sounded sort of like a funky car alarm, but we knew car alarms don't move quickly about in the trees. We suspected an owl, and our thoughts were confirmed when we looked up the different owl sounds when we returned.

A frog in a small pond at the park

Eger at night

Eger is known for its vineyards and wine cellars, and this is where my great grandfather owned some vineyards

One of our plans for birding in Hungary was to visit Hortobagy National Park, a prime birding wetland. It was very fruitful, bringing many new birds and a really fun day!