Hortobágy

One of Europe's largest national parks, the Hortobágy offers some of the continent’s most exciting birdwatching, including the spectacular sight of thousands of migrating cranes and geese.

The sweeping landscapes of the steppe country extend across a huge swathe of temperate Eurasia, eastwards to Mongolia. In only one place does a part of this vast steppe wilderness extend a finger into Europe: the plains of Eastern Hungary. This is the Hortobágy, an ancient floodplain of steppe grassland whose unspoiled meadows are interspersed with marshes and pools. Apart from the odd scattered woodland, nothing breaks the skyline of this immense open landscape.

In autumn great bustards form flocks on the Hortobágy plains, which they share with migrant stone curlew and dotterel. Raptor numbers can be impressive here too, and these prey upon the abundant susliks (European ground squirrels) and other small mammals.

The Hortobágy fishponds are large, man-made lakes surrounded by reeds which make a superb feeding ground for birds that include pygmy cormorant, a variety of herons, wildfowl including ferruginous duck, and many migrant waders. The reedbeds here hold flocks of bearded and penduline tits. Long-eared owls also roost in the area.

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