Birds
 

In all the years I have visited Hungary I have never seen many birds or hardly any at all. I was only thinking about this yesterday because I have had two bird boxes attached to my garage and not seen a single bird make them as their home! This experience is from the North East region of Hungary around Miskolc. At this point in time I'm wondering is it worth bringing these bird boxes over to Hungary or not? Here in Orpington, Kent, UK I see alot of birds, in the early morning I can hear them cooing .... probably making a mating call ..... we have herons around here, as well as wood pigeons ..... in the nearby pond swans, geese (not uk variety!) .... various other small bird varieties .... etc. I should add every day at dawn I see geese flying over our house!
just got to add ..... the state of my car when these geese fly over my house .......not very pleasant.

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Just a guess, but maybe this is partly because Hungary is not a migration destination, migrating birds merely transiting rather than settling?

Have seen plenty of birds while cruising on the river but obviously that's a fairly narrow sector. Even saw Cranes up near Visegrád as well as Herons, etc.

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I have some Grackles if your interested and a few Pigeons. :) :) :)

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I would imagine that it varies depending where in Hungary you look as in any other country ... my garden has many birds of different types as does the surrounding areas in Zala County and every year there are new nests around the house and garden !

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that's a new one Grackles which are native to South America.

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To be honest I don't mind having birds around but not when they poo on my car! Happens alot to my poor car in the UK I'm thinking of buying one of those covers to protect the roof.

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Hobgoblins is correct - here around the Balaton we have masses of birds, right now black crows in the fields e g.
Every village has at least one stork's nest - some have dozens of them!
Doves are always sitting on our electric lines.
And of course there are others like swallows.
They often build their nests on the walls under the roofs - even our Interspar has some, ok cleaning is necessary. Some people want to get rid of them on their walls, what a shame!
I'll never forget:
A swallows couple wanted to build a nest on a wooden plank - in our garage!
The first time they did not succeed, it fell down, so when they started again I put a small wooden board below the plank - and it worked. And I also put some newspapers below the nest - you know those droppings. I regularly changed those, put the old ones on the compost heap - birdshis a very good fertilizer.
It was funny when we went near our garage and the parents would look at us while feeding their little ones ...
The next year we got a tomcat and he also was very interested in that nest or rather its inhabitants - they would fly at him like Stukas to defend their nest but in the end they gave up and looked elsewhere ...
PS:
Our tomcat Moritz (now 4 years old) still catches birds and eats them too - I tell my wife that this is part of the natural selection process and has to be ...

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my wife's family live in Malyi, near Miskolc. There is a man made lake, Malyi-to, and I have never seen any "water" birds like herons or cranes around here. Nearby is Nyekladhaza and I can't remember seeing any birds around there either.
Wolfi - are you sure they are doves? Maybe they are white pigeons. Some Brits when they get married like to release doves but what they don't know is they are actually white homing pigeons. On release they fly home to wait for their next wedding booking.

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Loads of birds around here near Dombovar, Baranya. Herons, egrets,
ducks, swans and storks (in summer) on the fishing lakes. Plenty of sparrowhawks and other birds of prey on fence posts by the roadside. My wife has all on to keep the bird feeders topped up with sunflower seeds, nuts and corn for the blue tits and sparrows. Plenty of jays, doves, pigeons and woodpeckers around too. We love it.

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DickyB, yes - we have them too, I only mentioned the most prominent I know.
Fentiger:
You had me there for a moment! I had to look this up - in German we say Taube and google says:
There's no difference between a pigeon and a dove in scientific nomenclature, but colloquial English tends to categorize them by size. Something called a dove is generally smaller than something called a pigeon, but that's not always the case. A common pigeon, for example, is called both a rock dove and a rock pigeon.

Totally forgot to mention starlings which like to eat all kinds of fruit - from cherries to grapes. Some wineries at the Balaton have loudspeakers installed in their fields that every few seconds produce the sound of a shooting to keep them away.

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A friend of ours often fishes at Nyekladhaza. He's never mentioned birds in this area. I've been a passenger going past the lakes at Nyekladhaza many times and not seen a single dicky bird!

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Should mention magpies and the occasional robin. One of our neighbours has a pond and its been designed so the fish can go to the bottom to avoid being caught by herons.

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Well somebody has had more luck. https://ebird.org/checklist/S33401331 :thumbsup:

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I think I have found a new hobby for when I eventually move to Hungary .... bird watching and photography. I might have to upgrade my digital camera lens. It will be good to be out and about in the fresh air. I just hope that our dog/s will be quiet enough to allow me to take photos from a long distance!

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Lots of birds around my neck of the woods, particularly raptors. And Ialwaysknow when spring has arrived by the stork which nests on a pylon in in of villagesontheway to Miskolc!

Hungary is known as a bird watchers paradise:flypig:

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Maybe I am overdue for a visit to Specsavers!

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Re storks:
On our way to Tapolca we sometimes drive through the village Nagybajom which is considered the Stork Capital of Europe - more than a dozen nests on electricity/telephone poles.
Another place with many storks is Hodos in Slovenia just across the border, a short drive from the very nice Örség National Park in Hungary.

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Wolfi,

Nagybajom on your way to Tapolca? Depends where you're coming from of course, but...............

Have you moved? ;)

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Shotgun, thanks for the error report!
I'm an old man now and forget so much - of course it should have been Kaposvár

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I also live in NE Hungary and have many species visiting my garden. At the moment I have a bird feeder out which is being swamped by different tits and what appears to be a tree creeper. We also have plenty of jays around and quite a few woodpeckers, a pair of which seem to have hollowed out a hole in my apple tree. There are also numerous buzzards and other raptors and I watched an owl in one of my trees a short while ago.
Not far from Eger lives a retired police wildlife officer from England who, for quite a few years, has run bird watching tours around the Bükk and Hortóbágy. He arranges quite a few trips each year and gets visitors from all over the world due to the large number of bird species in such a small area.

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When we were in Bexleyheath all we saw were hundreds of parakeets, a few crows, and dozens of rock pigeons in the town centre. I suspect the squawking of the parakeets scared most things off and the crows did the rest in.

In Hungary on the Eastern Plains we have many song birds in our neighbour's copse but I haven't been able to identify which ones yet as I've only ever heard them not seen them and I have no idea what is what when it comes to birds singing but we love it anyway.
We also have a lot of sparrows plus there is a pheasant which every now and again we see somebody trying to catch for supper, at least I think there's only the one as we only ever catch a glimpse of it before it is back in the dense shrub.
A handful of storks also reside in the village city and a couple of places have built platforms for them to nest on.

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Parakeets - I used to live in Surbiton, near Kingston, Surrey and saw quite a few parakeets. But I didn't actually notice until my Hungarian brother-in-law mentioned it! In Orpington, Kent, I see quite a few. I always thought parakeets are tropical birds and more suited for warmer climates but it's obvious they are hardy birds because they can cope with UK winters.
Where did these parakeets come from? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/09/britains-parakeets-really-did-come-set-african-queen-says-zoologist/
Benny Kovacs - interesting you lived in Bexley, which is not far from here. I hate driving around that area because there's so many speed bumps (sleeping policemen) on residential streets.

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This time I've seen more birds than before. Wonder if it's related to coronavirus, I. E. people staying home, less traffic, thus encouraging animals and birds to venture to places they don't normally go to.
Local friends have four swift nests just underneath their house roof.

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Probably more likely due to a mild winter.

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A swift bird???
Congratulations!
I had to look this up, thanks fentiger for reminding me.
Apus Apus (its scientific name) is Mauersegler in German - they are really special birds!

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I always know that spring's on its way when the first swifts arrive. Sadly, there aren't as many as there used to be when I first came to live here 13 years ago.

They build their nests under the eaves of my house. When returning to their nests they sometimes fly too low and end up in my kitchen. My dogs are so used to it happening they no longer take any notice!

I've also got two woodpeckers which I can hear but have only once managed to see, and a tiny bird who's made its nest in my electricity meter box.

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I have quite a few Swifts or Swallows around the garden but I'm not sure which of the two they are ! One pair always nest in my end room which is just for storage at present but this year a different breed pair took their nest ... the Swallows / Swifts were not impressed when they arrived later to find the squatters ! Sadly, the squatters hatched five chicks and they were doing well until a Jay decided to make a meal of them.
I found this fledgeling on the garden a few weeks ago, not sure if it's a Song Thrush or Mistle Thrush but given the amount of Christmas trees groing around the garden, I suspect it may be a Mistle Thrush ... but I am no expert by any means !!

Copyrighted photo´s removed

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Szuperb photos

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Thank You !!