Comment

BROWN BEARS OF TRANSYLVANIA

Carpathian Brown Bear in Transylvania’s Harghita region, June 2019

THE HOPED-FOR 2019 ROSY STARLING INVASION OF ROMANIA HAD NOT MATERIALISED, so what to do at the end of our time there? Spend it in the forests of Transylvania was the answer. Janó’s Sakertour team had finished extending their ‘stream background’ photo hide with a view to capturing some artistic against-the-light images in early morning sun and Janó was very keen to try it. Sakertour also have a new bear lodge near the lovely town of Székelyudvarhely (or ‘Odorheiu Sequiesq’), which is located in the Harghita municipality of Transylvania, 300km (or 5 hours drive) from Bucharest’s Henri Coanda International (OTP) Airport. Transylvania, which means ‘beyond the forest’, holds the largest population of Brown Bears outside Russia and thankfully they are now protected and are no longer hunted. The bears’ mating season extends late into spring so June is a good time to watch them and as food is left for them outside the photo hides, there is a very high chance of success. Ultimately we had such a good sunrise session in the ‘stream background’ hide that the rest of the guys went home after it, leaving me to my own devices and an afternoon session at another of the hides with a mature forest background. We saw two bears in the morning, one of which crossed the stream several times and I had another six in the afternoon, a number boosted by a mum and her three cubs. The bears approach the hides very closely at times and were too close for the 500, as these virtually uncropped images show. An effective focal length of 300-400mm would have been ideal. It was wonderful to stay in a place where there are bears in the forest right on the edge of town bearing in mind that we got rid of our last one here at least 1000 years ago! Fab-u-lous in fact! It was also good to have some áfonya (blueberry) pálinka again at long last. I even brought some home too and am looking forward to a reason to open it. Finally thanks to János Oláh and his excellent Sakertour team of Zsolt and Tibi for looking after me so well and to Fiteti and Manu for making our trip such a lot of fun!

Comment

1 Comment

PALLAS'S GULL

Pallas’s Gull against a fiery sunset in the Danube Delta

Having seen his lovely cat earlier this year I was lucky to have an opportunity to see another of Pallas’s amazing creatures, this time his gull, in Romania’s Danube Delta, courtesy of my friend János Oláh and his Sakertour team. I remember when Janó was awaiting delivery of the ‘Borzas’ (= ‘shaggy’, after the Hungarian name for Dalmatian Pelican) almost 10 years ago and how excited he was about his plans for developing proper bird photo tours in the delta. They are very well evolved now and with the two Zolis, Gergely Nagy and Bacszo guiding the Sakertour groups in the delta I can think of few better tours in terms of numbers of easy-to-shoot great bird subjects. No-one else gets closer to the birds than the ‘Shaggy’ and so deep into the delta! Happily Pallas’s Gulls are becoming easier to see owing to the increasing numbers breeding in the delta and the Sakertour boys have got them well figured out now. We were able to spend a lot of time with them taking thousands of flight shots in lovely golden light both in the earl morning and evening. A few from the sunset session are shown below. Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) is one of the most well known German naturalists and his name is synonymous with amazing creatures from the east, where he travelled extensively, however, I had no idea he has a metal (from a meteorite) named after him as well, Pallasite! Thanks to Zoltán Gergely Nagy for guiding us and Romica Tiganov for driving the ‘Shaggy’ through the narrow channels in the heart of the delta so expertly.

1 Comment

Comment

DANUBE DELTA

Dalmatian Pelican burning in a delta sunset

THE DANUBE DELTA IS THE LARGEST WETLAND IN EUROPE, covering more than 515,000 hectares, of which 220,000 hectares is reed bed, the largest in the world. To put this into perspective the total reedbed habitat in the UK amounts to only 5,000 spread across 900 sites! The delta is truly immense. Designated BirdLife International’s Important Bird Area IBA RO081, it holds significant (>1% of the EU) breeding populations of the following 26 bird species: Ferruginous Duck, Spotted Crake, Little Crake, Yelkouan Shearwater, Eurasian Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Great Bittern, Black-crowned Night Heron, Squacco Heron, Purple Heron, Great Egret, Dalmatian and Great White Pelicans, Pygmy Cormorant, Pied Avocet, Kentish Plover, Collared Pratincole, Little Gull and Mediterranean Gulls, Little, Caspian, Whiskered, Common and Sandwich Terns, White-tailed Eagle and Red-footed Falcon.

To say it is a birdwatcher’s paradise is definitely an understatement! Every time we ventured out in the myriad channels and lagoons in the heart of the delta, we got this impression, there were simply birds in profusion everywhere. As well as the water birds the reedbeds were alive with the songs of Great Reed Warblers and Common Cuckoos chased overhead in numbers we can only now dream of in the UK. The ancient willows lining the banks provided nest sites for Golden Orioles, rollers, hoopoes and noisy Red-footed Falcons, while Thrush Nightingales belted out their songs from the dark shadows and the occasional ‘pings’ of Bearded Tits could be heard even from the smallest patches of reeds. The nests of Penduline Tits dangled precariously over the water and kingfishers zipped along the channels. Out in the more open lagoons, where large stands of lily pads grow, mixed colonies of Black-necked and Great Crested Grebes nested side by side with Whiskered, Black and Common Terns with the ever-watchful Hooded Crow lurking nearby in the hope of an easy meal. Little Bitterns and Red-necked Grebes were also here but were a little shyer and more retiring. The most exciting spectacle for me were the Pallas’s Gulls, almost all pristine adults in breeding plumage, their number has recently increased and we counted up to 22 at any one time during our efforts to photograph them.

It was a real privilege to be able to get so close to many of the special birds of the delta as a guest of my friends at Sakertour in their custom-built photo boat. We had a lot of laughs of course but this was also the first time I had visited the delta in spring and turned out to be some of the best days birding I had in Europe so far. It is said that spectacles are the new ‘megas’ and if the Danube Delta isn’t on your ‘bucket list’ yet, it really ought to be. Finally I would like to thank János Oláh and his Sakertour team of specialist photo guide Zoltán Gergely Nagy, our boat driver Romica Tiganov, János Tar (‘Manu’) and Attila Szilági (‘Fiteti’) for looking after me so well. By the way we still have space on the 2020 Wild Images Danube Delta tour here.

Pallas’s Gull is a fish eating gull that usually avoids rubbish tips!

Whiskered Tern backlit

Black Tern over its lily pad colony

Black Tern over its lily pad colony

Mating Black-necked Grebes

Red-necked Grebe in evening light

Purple Herons were unusually shy in the delta

Purple Herons were unusually shy in the delta

Squacco Herons were common and very obliging

Little Crake skipping across lily pads

Common Kingfisher

Eurasian Hoopoes are feeding well grown young by late May



Comment

1 Comment

PALLAS'S CAT

Pallas’s Cat, Tso Kar [Mike Watson]

We were already thrilled by a great morning at Tso Kar that included Argali, Ground Tit, Upland Buzzard, Blanford’s Snowfinch and point blank Tibetan Sandgrouse but there was even more to come in the afternoon to make this my ultimate Tso Kar day and one of my best wildlife days ever. After a late lunch and a short break we set off again, hoping for a wolf, the last piece in our jigsaw, or so we thought. While cruising along slowly and checking some roadside birds I noticed a small cat trotting along the snow-free road ahead of us. It couldn’t be surely, could it? Well it was! Otzer turned on the gas and as we neared it, the cat veered off the road and crouched in front of a small raised patch of ground only a few metres away as I fired off a few frames at what was now clearly a Pallas’s Cat!!! Significantly rarer and more difficult to see in Ladakh than Snow Leopard, Jigmet mentioned that although he had now seen Snow Leopard more than 300 times but this was only his second Pallas’s Cat! The cat was clearly very cross at being disturbed and headed off across a nearby snowfield, pausing to scowl back at us every now and again. All three of our cars could watch its progress across the deep snow, a huge WOW moment for all of us. After a while a search party was assembled and Jigmet and his boys tracked the cat to a gully around half a kilometre away, where its trail went cold on bare ground. Time ticked away and the group of searchers dwindled, some connecting with a wolf that David Salt had spotted walking across the snow in front of the vehicles back at the roadside. However, after everyone else had given up and gone back to the Eco Resort at Thukje, Gyaltsen and Changchuk re-found the cat sitting at the entrance to a den in a small outcrop. Sadly too late for anyone to return in daylight and all that could be done was to admire the face-only portraits on their smartphones at evening meal.

Pallas’s Cat tracks at Tso Kar [Mike Watson]

Pallas’s Cat den, Tso Kar [Mike Watson]

Next morning we woke up and under clear skies it really was flipping freezing - a minimum of -32 Celsius was recorded just before dawn. Tso Kar acts as a cold sink for the air on the surrounding mountains. Our guys had stayed up all night keeping the vehicles ticking over so we were ready to roll. We headed out to the Pallas’s Cat den again but in a nutshell there was no sign this morning of its feisty little occupant, who was either fast asleep inside or had moved off to another nearby bolt-hole, of which there appeared to be several, along with more than one set of tracks! We had lunch and decided to get out of Tso Kar and enjoy some heating back in the Indus Gorge at Chumathang, our results at Tso Kar being well and truly off the scale. We crossed the now much snowier Polokonka La without incident, seeing a few Tibetan Snowcocks and en route Jigmet conjured up some great views of Stolicka’s Mountain Voles roadside at Puga Somdo, much to the delight of our small mammal enthusiast Linda. Some of the hot springs had plumes of ice frozen over them, such is the extreme cold here that boiling water freezes in the air.

Pallas’s Cat, Tso Kar [Mike Watson]

1 Comment