Following on from my previous blog post – Click here for Part 1
Sitting on the tarmac at Kiruna airport, neither Netra nor I were looking forward to the 12-hour flight to Budapest, because we had to take three flights in total. There were no direct flights from Stockholm, except Wizz air. I had read so many poor reviews of that airline, that I did not want to risk flying with them at all.
The airport personnel were using machines to de-ice the wings on our Boeing 737 jet prior to departure. The sun was below the horizon, but the gorgeous pink hues in the sky were as real as any sunrise you see. The beauty about this winter light – or lack of, to be honest – is that any landscape photographer would be drooling at the length of time the gorgeous pinks and purples abound in the sky, making landscape images a possibility for well over an hour. From memory, the light stayed the same beautiful pastel in the sky for at least 90 minutes!
The flight to Stockholm was quick, then a change of plane took us to Amsterdam, but with enough layover first to allow for some duty-free shopping and lunch/dinner (or whatever you want to call it at 2pm, when it’s already pitch-black outside). Having arrived into Amsterdam airport, we were a little shocked, as neither of us have been there before. Walking through the concourse to spend time, we found that it was not a nice looking facility compared to others we have travelled through. Seeing a rat scurry across the floor gave us a good indication of the lack of hygiene, so we stayed low, and just waited around to board the last flight to Budapest. Arriving in Budapest was so wonderful, as I have not set foot in my homeland since January 2001. That visit was the only one I had made since my parents had defected from Hungary back in May 1985.
I warned Netra that way too many people smoke in places like Hungary, so she should be prepared for cigarette smoke everywhere. And boy, that came true the moment we walked out of the airport doors. We walked straight into a cloud of smoke emitted by what must have been a hundred smokers all puffing away! I phoned my childhood friend Gábor, who was waiting for us just outside the airport facility.
He came to pick us up, despite being close to midnight. His wife Kriszti and son Zsoma both came for the ride, and it was so nice to see them again (and meet Zsoma, who was born after my last visit back home). The best part of the trip was that Gábor owns a small apartment on the roof of the unit block he and I both grew up in back in the 70s-80s. He bought the roof space that was used for storage and laundry at the time and converted it to a liveable space for his mum. The apartment was used by his mum until her passing in 2009 and after that time, Gábor made it available as holiday rental accommodation. It was so amazing to see the building that I last remembered as a 13-year-old kid before we left. Gábor and Kriszti left some beautiful surprises for us in the fridge. Hungarian bacon, salami (the real Hungarian, so called ‘winter’ salami made by Pick), home baked sourdough bread, túró Rudi (a cold snack made of chocolate coated cottage cheese, which I loved as a kid), ham, fruit etc. They went above and beyond to welcome us home.
Looking out of the tenth-floor window brought back incredible childhood memories spent watching the August 20 fireworks every year from our then fourth floor balcony. The building faces the city and the Buda hills. It’s only five kilometers from the Buda side of the river and the famous landmarks such as the King’s Palace, Matthias Church or the Fisherman’s Bastion.
We planned a four-hour guided city bus tour for Netra so she could get a tour guide’s view of the city’s important history and some popular attractions. The rest we toured on our own. It’s hard to decide where to start, but the main parts of the city were very busy with the Christmas market still well alive with goodies, food, alcohol and the like in many locations through the center of town. The castle district was so busy, it was actually a bit disappointing being up there, as it was much like being in the middle of the Sydney CBD during a normal working day. We were squeezing past tourists all flocking to see the beautiful views, though who can really blame them? I barely heard Hungarian being spoken, it was a mix of so many foreign languages. I think the smart locals stay close to where they live and only come into these places when they really must.
I arranged for Netra and I to eat at famous places, such as Gerbeaud café in Vörösmarty square, and Gundel restaurant in city park, near where we were staying. Both establishments are world-famous and as a rule, out of the reach of the average Hungarian due to the quite expensive prices they charge for food. While neither were on the cheap side for us as foreign tourists with our Aussie dollar that was converted into Hungarian forint (HUF), we managed to squeeze a meal in each of those amazing establishments. I must say, that Gerbeaud is somewhere I would not personally bother again, as for what we paid, the servings were small and really not worth it. Not to say the food was bad. It was incredibly good! But Gundel, on the other hand, was more generous with servings and we both loved our meals very much. Naturally, before heading in for lunch on the day before we flew back home to Sydney, we had to do a bit of bird spotting at the lake across the street. There were gulls, a grey heron, and some other waterfowl. The coolest sighting belonged to Netra herself when as we were walking along she suddenly exclaimed: “Look! A kingfisher!”
And lo behold, a common kingfisher was zipping barely five meters past us along the spillway only to rest about 40 meters away. Since I did not bring any bird photography lenses with me on our day outing, I took a couple of distant phone images. What an amazing sighting of this little speedster. Netra indeed has amazing eyes and observation skills!
On one of our evenings, I organised a get together with old school friends with whom I went to primary school together back in the 80s. It felt like we were never apart really, despite life changing for all of us over the past 39 years. We had some great Turkish food, talked for hours and were excited to be in each other’s company again.
While it was mostly a visit to my homeland to see where I grew up, no self-respecting Birdman and Birdwife could possibly go to a country and not consider checking out the birds on offer. And that we did, indeed! A few years ago I learned of overwintering Long-eared Owls in the countryside. These owls are known to roost in small towns throughout the country and many towns have regular roosting areas, where they can be observed. The best way to start the new year is to head out on a road trip to see something cool on the first of January, and that we did!
Leaving Budapest at 7am, when it was still dreary and dark, we headed east along the M4 motorway towards the small town of Túrkeve, about 50km south-west from Hortobágy National Park. It is reputed, that this town generally has the highest number of roosting owls. It didn’t take us long to find the small square in town and the park, about the size of a basketball court, was home to over 80 individuals, all roosting in different places in the 16 or so tall trees of various species. There were more owls in one small area than there are owls I have seen in over 20 years of bird watching/photography in SE Australia! It was truly one of the most amazing things we have ever witnessed together and we have seen some cool things over the years! While we were keen to get some photos, we also had to be conscious of minimising disturbance by being present in their roost area, so we only spent 15-20 minutes there, before jumping back into the car to return to the city.
On the way to Túrkeve, we started to notice raptors sitting by the snowy roadside in the dim light. They were mostly common buzzards (Buteo buteo) and it was fun to count them, as a way to keep us occupied during the otherwise mundane drive. We counted 13 on the way to the town. Keeping the practice up on the return trip to Budapest, we counted again and to our amazement, we counted another 64 individuals over the 170-kilometer journey. There were eight common kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) and a few other raptors, which neither of us could identify with confidence, but they were all falcons, too, though larger than kestrels.
I have known of a fellow wildlife photographer in Hungary for at least 15 years and while we knew each other online, we never met or spoke in person. He invited us to his place at Szomód, about one hour NW of the capital city to photograph from his specially built hide. I accepted the invite and once we worked out the details of cost, access, etc, we locked in the second of January as the day Netra and I would visit. He met us in the small village by 6:30am and drove us to within 100 meters from the hide. Once we were inducted to how the heating worked and what to expect, we made ourselves comfortable and got ready for the (hopefully) action ahead of us. The hide is known to have resident buzzards and a myriad of passerine and other bird types that visit. While there was a small water feature (bird bath) right in front of the glass itself at ground level, it was frozen due to the subzero temperatures and we could not expect any bathing images during the session. The way he built the hide was very clever and we were literally at ground level with our cameras to get the best possible angles of every opportunities.
Sadly, I have not seen, or heard of, any bird photography hide – or any bird hide – in Australia, that was built with photographers in mind, except the raptor hide at Inala in Tasmania. All other bird hides I have used/known of are just built above ground level, often too far from any activity that may be good to capture on camera. They are built by birders, not skilled photographers. Inala, which we have personally booked and used a few times in the past, was purposely built for photographing the local raptors, but it’s still above ground level, although the angle of view is not too bad once you are in it.
Our Szomód hide session started with a couple of different tit species coming in to the feeders and soon were followed by great-spotted woodpecker, a cute little Eurasian robin and a ring-necked pheasant (male). Though the male was so skittish, he was jumping at his own shadows too! It was quite funny in a way. It took an hour or so for the first buzzard to sit in the big oak tree across the field from the hide. Once it assessed the surrounds and figured it was safe to drop onto the meat offering, it flew down and started to feed. Not long after another buzzard arrived and waited patiently. Then in no time, it flew in and challenged the still feeding adult bird. We had to be ready for action and moment’s notice, as it was very suddenly when one bird started to challenge the other and they were now facing off with wings up, talons being launched at the opposition. This standoff lasted barely 30 seconds and during our hide stay well over six hours, it’s something that only really happened twice. But both Netra and I were able to walk away with some amazing behavioural shots of these super quick scuffles.
This is a message I always like to get across to photographers, that if they practice at their local spots with common species, once they come to such exotic locations and have a moment’s notice to act and shoot, they are far more likely to capture some amazing images too.
While the hide session ended up quite nice and positive with lovely winter sun, once we left Szomód and got back on the motorway, we hit fog, snow and other lovely weather elements to make the drive back to the city not so pleasant. Luckily, Netra agreed to make a nice curry for our friends Gábor and Kriszti, so that took over the rest of our day/evening and we had a beautiful meal with good friends.
With only one last day to go before our flight back home, we decided to go back into the heart of the city and walk around town to eat street food and just see the magnificent architecture that were marvellous. In the heart of town, it’s hard to find an ugly building design. All seem to be just perfectly crafted by architectural masters and builders from an era long gone.
We can’t wait to visit my city of birth again in the future and look forward to staying for much longer than the six days we did this time.