Wes Hobarth
Registered User
David Gascoyne (1916 2001, poet and translator) once told me that the only point of keeping a journal was to concentrate on the personal, the diurnal minutiae, and forget the great and significant events in the world at large. The newspapers cover all that anyway, he said. We don’t want to know that ”Hitler invaded Poland” – we’re more. curious about what you had for breakfast. Unless you happened to be there, of course, when Hitler invaded Poland and your breakfast was interrupted.
So, as I gear up for Hungary, I resume my travelogue journal. The commissioning letter from Vaughn Ashby at Birdfinders informs me my travelling companions are blessed with the names of Maurice Dengate, Jack Piper, Fiona Mansfield and Joy Mowat. That is apart from me and Norma and her best friend Liz and our esteemed guide Gorman(Cripes, why do I fear he will be a character from the literary cast that included Titus Groan?). There is a one-to-one relationship gender wise here. So how will Maurice and Jack fare with Fiona and Joy? The other four of us are happily or not engaged. A story will nonetheless, about all eight, emerge from the journey we are all about to undertake.
***
How wrong can you be? And how right? Maurice turned out to be one of those jammy bastard’s that retired early, fifty-four to be precise and has since enjoyed eleven years of ineluctable pleasure; he is also a Birding companion of Jack, a bean counter I discover. Fiona is a little, rich girl of a certain age who does judgements at Industrial Tribunals. Joy we never met. She, apparently passed away in Brazil on a recent but obviously prior Birding engagement. Allegedly the circumstances of her final journey into dust are mysterious.
But as we arrive at LHR at an ungodly four aaeem we don’t know this yet. We also do not know that a Hernia and an unexpected low pressure front are to conspire to provide the most macabre ending to any Birding trip ever, probably. All this as yet remains in the future. As does meeting Mister Gorman.
No, for the moment Liz, Norma and me are at the departure gate. Maurice and Jack who clearly have their eye in, spot us as Birders and make contact. Fiona a bench or two away must have eyeballed the yellow Birdfinders luggage tag on the Billingham Bag Jack intends for the overhead Locker and timidly she approaches this already formidably formed group. And with Maurice’s inside knowledge about Joy we discover we are complete. Apart from our Leader with whom we hope to connect with at the other end.
A faultless Malev Hungarian Airlines flight ensues; a mere hour late overall.
We re-constitute the group in the Arrivals lobby. No sign of Mister Gorman. I head outside as usual for a smoke in the arid heat, shortly to be joined by the rest. Three smokes later a lugubrious Mister Gorman arrives offering a limp handshake and no apology for his late arrival. He introduces us to our Mini-Bus and his Manservant and our Driver, a local handsome hulk named Attila.
Between the Airport and our rural destination at the southern end of the Zemplen Hills is the obstacle of Budapest. Local knowledge comes into play and we head off for the single track outer distribution road. Pointed out along the way is an Imperial Hapsburg Palace that was used as a Tank depot by the Russkies, but that is now being restored to some sort of former glory. Future purpose unknown.
As we traverse these back roads and Gerard (yes we have now become familiar) rants from the front of the Bus ohne mikrophon I suspect we have a gruppen fuhrer here. Both manner and expressed ideas match with my emerging view. In the meantime Atilla drives very carefully against the onslaught of local nutters.
A stop on the Motorway for a picnic lunch of Ham, Cheese and some wine, surprisingly, provides us with distant views of our first serious bird. Imperial Eagle. CrestedLark, Red-Backed Shrike and Feral Pigeon were also about. The abundance of Tree Sparrows was also becoming boring.
Late afternoon finds us booking in to our rural idyll for the next three nights. Not where we were expecting to stay I must add. Our chosen company’s first choice in Tokaj had been flooded by events further up the Danube, apparently. So no it is an isolated Hotel in an isolated forest somewhere on the south-western tip of the Zemplen Hills. A wander around the grounds gives us a day total of about forty species. The real hunt around here is allegedly for Woodpeckers, eight-up according to our Gerry. But that means getting up at frigging five……..
Which of course we do. Gerard has his portable CD and speaker to transmit bird calls. He has asked the group if anyone has objection to its use, which is rather nice. As we will not be disturbing any breeding birds or tired migrants and are certainly the only people likely to be doing this, we reckon this is acceptable. Regular readers will recall my disgust at Tony Marr’s behaviour in China. This is a pleasant contrast.
So, here we are again, wandering the hotel grounds and its environs. Grey-Headed, Green, Great Spotted, and Middle Spotted Peckers come into view, while the Black one is only heard. After breakfast up a forest hillside track we are also to be blessed with stunning and lengthy views of Lesser Spotted. Marsh Tit is also a welcome addition along with Sparrowhawk, Common Pheasant, Jay, Wren, Robin, Blackbird and Yellowhammer. Today’s species count ends up at around fifty two. We did go to a quarry in the late afternoon in search of Eagle Owl, but failed. Jack took a nasty fall on loose shale at this place and fell heavily on his hand. Stoical though he was it was touch and go whether he would be flown home. In the end Aspirin and keeping his hand in an ice bucket over dinner ensured his survival. Our Gerard offered no sympathy at the time of the incident. In fact he scolded the rest of us for not paying sufficient attention while he was atop the Quarry doing a bit of a Tony. I guess we can’t be perfect all of the time.
Tonight the blokes have a bit of a bonding session, well get pissed really. Maurice and Jack are on the quadruple Brandy’s and they had five of them. Me and Gerard stuck to beer. Nonetheless it meant I didn’t wake up for the early session and missed the Black W, which everyone else got. Maurice got up and got it but then fell fowl of something he had eaten last night and missed half-a-day while he sat on the pan.
What else did day three have in store? Our last in the hills for tomorrow we travel to the great plain (Hortobagy).
Well not too much. It was exceeding hot so Our Gerard decided on some woodland and therefore shaded tracks. Only trouble was, this being the hills the tracks always seemed to be up and mostly vertical. I spent the day panting like a haddock on a mountain top. I know, I know. I should give up the fags.
Apart from a lot of repeat business we pick up Hobby, Peregrine (an uncommon autumn visitor to Hungary) and at the very end of the day stunning views of Short-Toed Eagle which made it all worth it. Count for the day was fifty eight. Our Gerard says the hills are the hard Birding bit, from tomorrow on the Plains it gets easy.
I also discover today that Maurice has one of these hand-held GPS gadgets. Seeing what it does, I want one badly.
As part one of our trip draws to a close I reflect I have taken quite a shine to Our Gerard. He is such an unreconstructed thought recidivist. Dinner debates have ranged far and wide and Our Gerard has a tight, tangential, logical but non PC view on anything. Great fun.
****
I realise I have said little about Fiona. Something of an enigma. Quite a Botanist, she has been sent on this holiday by her husband to get Birding out of her system. Our Gerard by the way has adopted the Yul Brenner look for his head. Despite this I detect as he sits in command position at the front of the bus non-existent hairs rise on the back of his neck when Fiona asks a strangley(and no I didn’t mean strangely) angled question that gives him pause for thought. As he considers his reply the lengthy silence is, well, palpable. Has he heard the question? Has he heard the question and decided not to hear it? No. After a painful length of time the Bugger says something that is off the wall but placates the questioner. A neat talent As you might imagine I question Gerard about this over gentlemen having beers. But he is the soul of discretion and won’t be drawn. Well almost. After trying a Killigan on Kelly he admits, I know what you mean.
OK. That is Fiona dealt with. It is now Wednesday and it is the big drive to the Plain and the Hortobagy (pronounced Hortobadge) environment known as puszta. Petofi compared the Hortobagy puszta of the central Plain to “the sea, boundless and green”. In his day, this “glorious steppe” resounded to the pounding hooves of countless horses and cattle being driven from well to waterhole by mounted csikosok (horse herds) and gulyasok (cowboys) while Racka (sheep) grazed under the surveillance of Puli (dogs). Medieval tales of cities in the clouds and nineteenth century accounts of phantom woods, or the “extensive lake half enveloped in grey mist” which fooled John Paget, testify to the occurrence of mirages during the hot, dry, Hortobagy summers. Caused by the diffusion of light when layers of humid air at differing temperatures meet, these delibab sporadically appear at certain locations. We, of course, did not see any.
Before I tire of this theme, you should know that over the ages tribes have raised burial mounds (kungan), some dating back four to five thousand years. One of them served as the site of a duel between Frau Bartha of Debrecen and two rival taltos. Nowadays, the grasslands have receded and mirages are the closest that Hortobagy gets to witchcraft, but that puszta can still pass for Big Sky country, its low horizons casting every copse and hillock into high relief.
Poetry and culture over. What did we eye candy on the way there? Imperial Eagle for sure and Little Owl in the yard of our next hotel at which we arrived in the mid afternoon. I say yard, I am sure if the hotel could muster a brochure the barren weedy grass area that holds a few trees and is encircled by some bungalows that each contain about half a dozen rooms and constitute the establishment’s accommodation would be described as garden or grounds. The rest of the detail about where birds were seen has by a process of osmosis merged into a muddled whole. We stopped so many times and had no precise idea of our whereabouts or a name to attach to a place. Not that even a name would necessarily helped at this distance. Before Gerard gets on his high horse, he did give out some names during the nightly after dinner debriefing. With hindsight, perhaps I should have made some notes about the Jizz of places. We did do some fishponds though and this type of environment is to prove dominant for the rest of the holiday.
The day counts continue to increase, though, today was seventy three. Additions are:-
GC Grebe, Great and Pygmy Cormorant, Little Bittern, Squacco Heron, Little and Great White Egret, Purple Heron, Black and White Stork (i.e. two existing species, not a singular new find, for the grammarian’s out there), Greylag, Ferruginous D, Lesser Spotted Eagle, R-F Falcon, Grey Partridge, Moorhen and Coot, Black-Headed and Yellow-Legged Gs, Whiskered Tern, Common Swift, Bee Eater, Roller, Sand Martin, Yellow (Blue-Headed) Wag, Pied Wag, Lesser Grey Shrike ( this a big one for Jacko), and belated to expectation Hooded Crow.
Despite the rather run down qualities of our second Hotel, the evening meals were to be a Class A revelation of local culinary triumph. On the other hand it could just be that they were a blessed relief from the monotony of cheese and ham breakfasts and picnic lunches. Sorry I forgot, for the first few days there were always two tomatoes to be shared amongst us. But Jacko always seemed to snaffle these for one of his triple-art-decker sandwiches. After we bleated about this, Attila (who sneaked off every day to buy lunch while we were Birding) produced more tomatoes than a regiment could eat. As Gerard would hark on we aim to please.
Day five was as I recall mostly mediocre Fish ponds. Little Grebe, Shovelor, Common Pochard, White-Tailed Eagle, Water Rail (heard), Common Crane, Grey Plover, Ruff, Bl-T Godwit, Curlew, Spotted and Common Redshank, Marsh Sand (heard), Greenshank, Wood and Common Sand, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Icterine Warbler (heard, apparently), Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Penduline Tit, Golden Oriole, Jackdaw and Rook were unremarkable additions today.
Breakfast has traditionally been taken at a relatively civilised Seven A.M. But today it is at Six A.M. Our Gerard has arranged with his mate the Professor (Head Honcho of the Hortobagy National Park) for a hunt for Great Bustard. The Prof has had his scouts out the day before, so sightings should be assured. And so it proves. We get fifteen of the bastards. Super views of Stone Curlew are an added bonus. The Prof, a shrivelled walnut, doesn’t like smoking, so I have to do without, during all this excitement. Herds of Water Buffalo and Hungarian Grey Cattle are also introduced to us today as we search for Dotterel on a shaved and dusty Plain in a force ten Sirocco wind. Our Gerard swears for the first time on the trip. Let’s get the **** out of here. But for Gerard it wasn’t just the wind heat and dust. I have noticed, previously that Our Gerard seems to be in increasing physical discomfort. I parly with him about my observations. He admits to a Hernia Op a week or so ago. I reckon he has been overdoing it, too much too soon. He won’t have it (until later today that is) but bear in mind the first factor for the weirdest ending to any Birding trip ever has just been exposed. Well not quite. Later in the day over a Ham and cheese sarnny Our G exposes his scars. They look a bit overripe to me. I reckon he needs medical supervision, but he is reluctant to leave his post. As the day wears on he draws me aside. I take the compliment that he regards me as his natural lieutenant of the group. Yes Gerard if you have a mate who can sub for the last two days go for it. Selfishly, I have been secretly negotiating with Gerard for future trips to the cob-webbed corners of an extended Europe and I need him in good shape. So by Mobile arrangements are made. Andras Schmidt (a nubile catomite of Gerard’s as it turned out will drive in G’s Four-wheel drive from Budapest to replace him on the morning of day seven and our G will return in his own car to Budapest and seek medical help from yet another networked contact.
And so all this comes to pass and Gerard is no longer there. Tears are shed. Believe me.
****
Day seven and our last full one in the field. The centrepiece is to be a 6km wander around some vast area of fishponds we haven’t visited yet. As it turns out the best has been saved till last, as today we will clock no less than ninety-three species.
But first, what of Andras? A young and lean lad with impeccable English. He works at the Institute for the Environment and is a member of the Hungarian rare birds committee. He has also contributed to a Nomenclator Avium Hungariae. Needless to say he has a few copies in his suitcase and at dinner tonight I will buy one and Andras will write a dedication. This week has seen my signed Bird books tally increase by 100 per cent.
Breakfast over, Gerard gone (missing him already), Andras introduced ( he will be more than OK), a bus ride on tarmac for half-an-hour or so, followed by 4km on a mud track (measured on Maurice’s GPS) and we decant to begin our hike. Poor Andras has a massive rucksack that contains our picnic lunch. He looks bloody fit, perhaps this handicap will slow him to our mid-life natural pace.
Before, we even start, we get, what could be considered the bird of the trip. It is first sighted on reeds, completely the wrong habitat. A pic would make a good one for a Bird Quiz. Then it flies to an exposed branch and just sits there for several minutes, no more than ten metres away. I even get to digiscope it. What was it? Well, a Wryneck if you must know. This is followed shortly by our first Mute Swan.
A couple of kilometres along grassy tracks and Savi’s and Corn Bunting, later we arrive at drained fishpond and clean up on shorebirds big time.
Ringed, little and Grey Plover, Lapwing, Little and Temminck’s Stint, Curlew Sand, Dunlin, Ruff, Snipe, Black-Tailed G, Curlew, both Redshanks, Marsh, common and Green Sand.
Gulls. Black-Headed, Yellow-Legged, Caspian (a possible at half-a-mile in the haze) and Little.
Terns. Gull-Billed, Caspian, Common and Whiskered.
Liz and I also, independently, got on a Bar-Tailed G, without realising its significance (rare but annual on passage). Andras was desperate to see it when he heard about it but by this time I had my camera on my scope and couldn’t see a thing. Just blindly clicking away at the panorama before us. We were unable, subsequently to re locate it.
Several Cuckoos also offered excellent views as we trundled along to a Hide where we had lunch, some Ducks (ten species, six new) and 600 Cranes flying in. Two White Storks also obliged. Water Rail was heard.
Late afternoon we stopped by some smallholdings. Ideal habitat for Syrian Woodie. Heard only.
Back to base for some cold beers, super tiffin and chat.
As we retire for the night that low pressure front closes in and it rains and rains and rains all night. The early morning walk is a wash-out. Our flight is early evening and we had already agreed beforehand to head for Budapest after breakfast for a bit of sight-seeing in Pest and a bit of birding in Buda.
The bus is packed and we are off by eight. The weather eases and we stop by some young woodland. Nothing really. Next stop is Sunflower land and tilled fields plus sporadic trees and regular Pylons. Saker Falcon on Pylon trees and sky and two juvenile Imperial Eagles farting about with each other on the ground proves to be rather pleasant.
And so to Budapest, where it rains and rains and rains, except when it doesn’t.
We drive through Pest, the flat bit and head for a wooded park in the Buda hills for some final Birding. Andras says two specks are Hawfinches, but we aren’t having it. And now it really rains. And we must go somewhere for lunch. Andras takes us to his Institute, which being a Sunday is shut, apart from the Security. Some negotiation takes place and we get in. We go to a lecture and interpretation building, take our shoes off so as not to get the floor muddy, while Attila sets up our final repast on a table clearly more familiar with Power Point projectors. But now for the macabre.
We eat our lunch surrounded by glass display cases containing over two hundred stuffed birds. The largest collection in the region. I am captivated to observe size differences in front of my nose between species, as opposed to through the scope and I just have to photograph the Slender-Billed Curlew.
The End.
Wes.
So, as I gear up for Hungary, I resume my travelogue journal. The commissioning letter from Vaughn Ashby at Birdfinders informs me my travelling companions are blessed with the names of Maurice Dengate, Jack Piper, Fiona Mansfield and Joy Mowat. That is apart from me and Norma and her best friend Liz and our esteemed guide Gorman(Cripes, why do I fear he will be a character from the literary cast that included Titus Groan?). There is a one-to-one relationship gender wise here. So how will Maurice and Jack fare with Fiona and Joy? The other four of us are happily or not engaged. A story will nonetheless, about all eight, emerge from the journey we are all about to undertake.
***
How wrong can you be? And how right? Maurice turned out to be one of those jammy bastard’s that retired early, fifty-four to be precise and has since enjoyed eleven years of ineluctable pleasure; he is also a Birding companion of Jack, a bean counter I discover. Fiona is a little, rich girl of a certain age who does judgements at Industrial Tribunals. Joy we never met. She, apparently passed away in Brazil on a recent but obviously prior Birding engagement. Allegedly the circumstances of her final journey into dust are mysterious.
But as we arrive at LHR at an ungodly four aaeem we don’t know this yet. We also do not know that a Hernia and an unexpected low pressure front are to conspire to provide the most macabre ending to any Birding trip ever, probably. All this as yet remains in the future. As does meeting Mister Gorman.
No, for the moment Liz, Norma and me are at the departure gate. Maurice and Jack who clearly have their eye in, spot us as Birders and make contact. Fiona a bench or two away must have eyeballed the yellow Birdfinders luggage tag on the Billingham Bag Jack intends for the overhead Locker and timidly she approaches this already formidably formed group. And with Maurice’s inside knowledge about Joy we discover we are complete. Apart from our Leader with whom we hope to connect with at the other end.
A faultless Malev Hungarian Airlines flight ensues; a mere hour late overall.
We re-constitute the group in the Arrivals lobby. No sign of Mister Gorman. I head outside as usual for a smoke in the arid heat, shortly to be joined by the rest. Three smokes later a lugubrious Mister Gorman arrives offering a limp handshake and no apology for his late arrival. He introduces us to our Mini-Bus and his Manservant and our Driver, a local handsome hulk named Attila.
Between the Airport and our rural destination at the southern end of the Zemplen Hills is the obstacle of Budapest. Local knowledge comes into play and we head off for the single track outer distribution road. Pointed out along the way is an Imperial Hapsburg Palace that was used as a Tank depot by the Russkies, but that is now being restored to some sort of former glory. Future purpose unknown.
As we traverse these back roads and Gerard (yes we have now become familiar) rants from the front of the Bus ohne mikrophon I suspect we have a gruppen fuhrer here. Both manner and expressed ideas match with my emerging view. In the meantime Atilla drives very carefully against the onslaught of local nutters.
A stop on the Motorway for a picnic lunch of Ham, Cheese and some wine, surprisingly, provides us with distant views of our first serious bird. Imperial Eagle. CrestedLark, Red-Backed Shrike and Feral Pigeon were also about. The abundance of Tree Sparrows was also becoming boring.
Late afternoon finds us booking in to our rural idyll for the next three nights. Not where we were expecting to stay I must add. Our chosen company’s first choice in Tokaj had been flooded by events further up the Danube, apparently. So no it is an isolated Hotel in an isolated forest somewhere on the south-western tip of the Zemplen Hills. A wander around the grounds gives us a day total of about forty species. The real hunt around here is allegedly for Woodpeckers, eight-up according to our Gerry. But that means getting up at frigging five……..
Which of course we do. Gerard has his portable CD and speaker to transmit bird calls. He has asked the group if anyone has objection to its use, which is rather nice. As we will not be disturbing any breeding birds or tired migrants and are certainly the only people likely to be doing this, we reckon this is acceptable. Regular readers will recall my disgust at Tony Marr’s behaviour in China. This is a pleasant contrast.
So, here we are again, wandering the hotel grounds and its environs. Grey-Headed, Green, Great Spotted, and Middle Spotted Peckers come into view, while the Black one is only heard. After breakfast up a forest hillside track we are also to be blessed with stunning and lengthy views of Lesser Spotted. Marsh Tit is also a welcome addition along with Sparrowhawk, Common Pheasant, Jay, Wren, Robin, Blackbird and Yellowhammer. Today’s species count ends up at around fifty two. We did go to a quarry in the late afternoon in search of Eagle Owl, but failed. Jack took a nasty fall on loose shale at this place and fell heavily on his hand. Stoical though he was it was touch and go whether he would be flown home. In the end Aspirin and keeping his hand in an ice bucket over dinner ensured his survival. Our Gerard offered no sympathy at the time of the incident. In fact he scolded the rest of us for not paying sufficient attention while he was atop the Quarry doing a bit of a Tony. I guess we can’t be perfect all of the time.
Tonight the blokes have a bit of a bonding session, well get pissed really. Maurice and Jack are on the quadruple Brandy’s and they had five of them. Me and Gerard stuck to beer. Nonetheless it meant I didn’t wake up for the early session and missed the Black W, which everyone else got. Maurice got up and got it but then fell fowl of something he had eaten last night and missed half-a-day while he sat on the pan.
What else did day three have in store? Our last in the hills for tomorrow we travel to the great plain (Hortobagy).
Well not too much. It was exceeding hot so Our Gerard decided on some woodland and therefore shaded tracks. Only trouble was, this being the hills the tracks always seemed to be up and mostly vertical. I spent the day panting like a haddock on a mountain top. I know, I know. I should give up the fags.
Apart from a lot of repeat business we pick up Hobby, Peregrine (an uncommon autumn visitor to Hungary) and at the very end of the day stunning views of Short-Toed Eagle which made it all worth it. Count for the day was fifty eight. Our Gerard says the hills are the hard Birding bit, from tomorrow on the Plains it gets easy.
I also discover today that Maurice has one of these hand-held GPS gadgets. Seeing what it does, I want one badly.
As part one of our trip draws to a close I reflect I have taken quite a shine to Our Gerard. He is such an unreconstructed thought recidivist. Dinner debates have ranged far and wide and Our Gerard has a tight, tangential, logical but non PC view on anything. Great fun.
****
I realise I have said little about Fiona. Something of an enigma. Quite a Botanist, she has been sent on this holiday by her husband to get Birding out of her system. Our Gerard by the way has adopted the Yul Brenner look for his head. Despite this I detect as he sits in command position at the front of the bus non-existent hairs rise on the back of his neck when Fiona asks a strangley(and no I didn’t mean strangely) angled question that gives him pause for thought. As he considers his reply the lengthy silence is, well, palpable. Has he heard the question? Has he heard the question and decided not to hear it? No. After a painful length of time the Bugger says something that is off the wall but placates the questioner. A neat talent As you might imagine I question Gerard about this over gentlemen having beers. But he is the soul of discretion and won’t be drawn. Well almost. After trying a Killigan on Kelly he admits, I know what you mean.
OK. That is Fiona dealt with. It is now Wednesday and it is the big drive to the Plain and the Hortobagy (pronounced Hortobadge) environment known as puszta. Petofi compared the Hortobagy puszta of the central Plain to “the sea, boundless and green”. In his day, this “glorious steppe” resounded to the pounding hooves of countless horses and cattle being driven from well to waterhole by mounted csikosok (horse herds) and gulyasok (cowboys) while Racka (sheep) grazed under the surveillance of Puli (dogs). Medieval tales of cities in the clouds and nineteenth century accounts of phantom woods, or the “extensive lake half enveloped in grey mist” which fooled John Paget, testify to the occurrence of mirages during the hot, dry, Hortobagy summers. Caused by the diffusion of light when layers of humid air at differing temperatures meet, these delibab sporadically appear at certain locations. We, of course, did not see any.
Before I tire of this theme, you should know that over the ages tribes have raised burial mounds (kungan), some dating back four to five thousand years. One of them served as the site of a duel between Frau Bartha of Debrecen and two rival taltos. Nowadays, the grasslands have receded and mirages are the closest that Hortobagy gets to witchcraft, but that puszta can still pass for Big Sky country, its low horizons casting every copse and hillock into high relief.
Poetry and culture over. What did we eye candy on the way there? Imperial Eagle for sure and Little Owl in the yard of our next hotel at which we arrived in the mid afternoon. I say yard, I am sure if the hotel could muster a brochure the barren weedy grass area that holds a few trees and is encircled by some bungalows that each contain about half a dozen rooms and constitute the establishment’s accommodation would be described as garden or grounds. The rest of the detail about where birds were seen has by a process of osmosis merged into a muddled whole. We stopped so many times and had no precise idea of our whereabouts or a name to attach to a place. Not that even a name would necessarily helped at this distance. Before Gerard gets on his high horse, he did give out some names during the nightly after dinner debriefing. With hindsight, perhaps I should have made some notes about the Jizz of places. We did do some fishponds though and this type of environment is to prove dominant for the rest of the holiday.
The day counts continue to increase, though, today was seventy three. Additions are:-
GC Grebe, Great and Pygmy Cormorant, Little Bittern, Squacco Heron, Little and Great White Egret, Purple Heron, Black and White Stork (i.e. two existing species, not a singular new find, for the grammarian’s out there), Greylag, Ferruginous D, Lesser Spotted Eagle, R-F Falcon, Grey Partridge, Moorhen and Coot, Black-Headed and Yellow-Legged Gs, Whiskered Tern, Common Swift, Bee Eater, Roller, Sand Martin, Yellow (Blue-Headed) Wag, Pied Wag, Lesser Grey Shrike ( this a big one for Jacko), and belated to expectation Hooded Crow.
Despite the rather run down qualities of our second Hotel, the evening meals were to be a Class A revelation of local culinary triumph. On the other hand it could just be that they were a blessed relief from the monotony of cheese and ham breakfasts and picnic lunches. Sorry I forgot, for the first few days there were always two tomatoes to be shared amongst us. But Jacko always seemed to snaffle these for one of his triple-art-decker sandwiches. After we bleated about this, Attila (who sneaked off every day to buy lunch while we were Birding) produced more tomatoes than a regiment could eat. As Gerard would hark on we aim to please.
Day five was as I recall mostly mediocre Fish ponds. Little Grebe, Shovelor, Common Pochard, White-Tailed Eagle, Water Rail (heard), Common Crane, Grey Plover, Ruff, Bl-T Godwit, Curlew, Spotted and Common Redshank, Marsh Sand (heard), Greenshank, Wood and Common Sand, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Icterine Warbler (heard, apparently), Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Penduline Tit, Golden Oriole, Jackdaw and Rook were unremarkable additions today.
Breakfast has traditionally been taken at a relatively civilised Seven A.M. But today it is at Six A.M. Our Gerard has arranged with his mate the Professor (Head Honcho of the Hortobagy National Park) for a hunt for Great Bustard. The Prof has had his scouts out the day before, so sightings should be assured. And so it proves. We get fifteen of the bastards. Super views of Stone Curlew are an added bonus. The Prof, a shrivelled walnut, doesn’t like smoking, so I have to do without, during all this excitement. Herds of Water Buffalo and Hungarian Grey Cattle are also introduced to us today as we search for Dotterel on a shaved and dusty Plain in a force ten Sirocco wind. Our Gerard swears for the first time on the trip. Let’s get the **** out of here. But for Gerard it wasn’t just the wind heat and dust. I have noticed, previously that Our Gerard seems to be in increasing physical discomfort. I parly with him about my observations. He admits to a Hernia Op a week or so ago. I reckon he has been overdoing it, too much too soon. He won’t have it (until later today that is) but bear in mind the first factor for the weirdest ending to any Birding trip ever has just been exposed. Well not quite. Later in the day over a Ham and cheese sarnny Our G exposes his scars. They look a bit overripe to me. I reckon he needs medical supervision, but he is reluctant to leave his post. As the day wears on he draws me aside. I take the compliment that he regards me as his natural lieutenant of the group. Yes Gerard if you have a mate who can sub for the last two days go for it. Selfishly, I have been secretly negotiating with Gerard for future trips to the cob-webbed corners of an extended Europe and I need him in good shape. So by Mobile arrangements are made. Andras Schmidt (a nubile catomite of Gerard’s as it turned out will drive in G’s Four-wheel drive from Budapest to replace him on the morning of day seven and our G will return in his own car to Budapest and seek medical help from yet another networked contact.
And so all this comes to pass and Gerard is no longer there. Tears are shed. Believe me.
****
Day seven and our last full one in the field. The centrepiece is to be a 6km wander around some vast area of fishponds we haven’t visited yet. As it turns out the best has been saved till last, as today we will clock no less than ninety-three species.
But first, what of Andras? A young and lean lad with impeccable English. He works at the Institute for the Environment and is a member of the Hungarian rare birds committee. He has also contributed to a Nomenclator Avium Hungariae. Needless to say he has a few copies in his suitcase and at dinner tonight I will buy one and Andras will write a dedication. This week has seen my signed Bird books tally increase by 100 per cent.
Breakfast over, Gerard gone (missing him already), Andras introduced ( he will be more than OK), a bus ride on tarmac for half-an-hour or so, followed by 4km on a mud track (measured on Maurice’s GPS) and we decant to begin our hike. Poor Andras has a massive rucksack that contains our picnic lunch. He looks bloody fit, perhaps this handicap will slow him to our mid-life natural pace.
Before, we even start, we get, what could be considered the bird of the trip. It is first sighted on reeds, completely the wrong habitat. A pic would make a good one for a Bird Quiz. Then it flies to an exposed branch and just sits there for several minutes, no more than ten metres away. I even get to digiscope it. What was it? Well, a Wryneck if you must know. This is followed shortly by our first Mute Swan.
A couple of kilometres along grassy tracks and Savi’s and Corn Bunting, later we arrive at drained fishpond and clean up on shorebirds big time.
Ringed, little and Grey Plover, Lapwing, Little and Temminck’s Stint, Curlew Sand, Dunlin, Ruff, Snipe, Black-Tailed G, Curlew, both Redshanks, Marsh, common and Green Sand.
Gulls. Black-Headed, Yellow-Legged, Caspian (a possible at half-a-mile in the haze) and Little.
Terns. Gull-Billed, Caspian, Common and Whiskered.
Liz and I also, independently, got on a Bar-Tailed G, without realising its significance (rare but annual on passage). Andras was desperate to see it when he heard about it but by this time I had my camera on my scope and couldn’t see a thing. Just blindly clicking away at the panorama before us. We were unable, subsequently to re locate it.
Several Cuckoos also offered excellent views as we trundled along to a Hide where we had lunch, some Ducks (ten species, six new) and 600 Cranes flying in. Two White Storks also obliged. Water Rail was heard.
Late afternoon we stopped by some smallholdings. Ideal habitat for Syrian Woodie. Heard only.
Back to base for some cold beers, super tiffin and chat.
As we retire for the night that low pressure front closes in and it rains and rains and rains all night. The early morning walk is a wash-out. Our flight is early evening and we had already agreed beforehand to head for Budapest after breakfast for a bit of sight-seeing in Pest and a bit of birding in Buda.
The bus is packed and we are off by eight. The weather eases and we stop by some young woodland. Nothing really. Next stop is Sunflower land and tilled fields plus sporadic trees and regular Pylons. Saker Falcon on Pylon trees and sky and two juvenile Imperial Eagles farting about with each other on the ground proves to be rather pleasant.
And so to Budapest, where it rains and rains and rains, except when it doesn’t.
We drive through Pest, the flat bit and head for a wooded park in the Buda hills for some final Birding. Andras says two specks are Hawfinches, but we aren’t having it. And now it really rains. And we must go somewhere for lunch. Andras takes us to his Institute, which being a Sunday is shut, apart from the Security. Some negotiation takes place and we get in. We go to a lecture and interpretation building, take our shoes off so as not to get the floor muddy, while Attila sets up our final repast on a table clearly more familiar with Power Point projectors. But now for the macabre.
We eat our lunch surrounded by glass display cases containing over two hundred stuffed birds. The largest collection in the region. I am captivated to observe size differences in front of my nose between species, as opposed to through the scope and I just have to photograph the Slender-Billed Curlew.
The End.
Wes.
