Hortobagy National Park - An introduction

The trip I made along the M3 highway from Budapest to Füzesabony, and then along Rt.33 is one of agricultural vistas. It's pretty enough, but things really changed once I reached the town of Egyek. Suddenly the vistas really opened up and everywhere there were birds. With the windows down, I was greeted by the songs of Reed Warblers, Great Reed Warblers, and Sedge Warblers that sang from the reed beds along the edges of the road.

Great Reed Warbler

 In addition to the vast grassland vistas, my view was filled with Great Egrets, Marsh Harriers, Buzzards, flocks of Lapwings, Black Terns, and Rooks.

Great White Egret

The minute you cross into the park you are immediately aware that this is one of Europe's great bird sanctuaries.

The park is about a two hour drive east of Budapest and is just west of Debrecen.

Hortobagy National Park (Hortobágyi Nemzeti Park) was established as Hungary's first national park in 1973.  The park was named a World Heritage Site in 1999, a UNESCO designation given to areas were human and natural systems coexist in a relatively stable system.  The parks 820 square kilometers (316 square miles) is a mosaic of loess and alkaline grasslands, wetlands, fishponds, woodlots, and floodplain forests.

The grassland and wetland systems of the park are maintained by a unique hydrological regime of flooding, and grazing by domestic animals today and by wild grazers like the Tarpan and the Aurochs before they went extinct.  For many years the grazing and flooding regime of the park has been disrupted by human activities.  Since these aspects of the park are so important to its ecological character, I'll write separate posts on them.

The Hortobagy is considered one of Europe's top ten areas for bird watching.  Over 600 species have been reported in the park, of which about half have been reported to breed in the park.  In addition to its large size and mix of habitats, it is one of the flyway stopover sites for birds migrating between northern Europe and Africa.

Sheep barn with thatched roof.

Water well.

Within the parks boundaries and its edges you can can see many human structures that characterize the relationship between the grasslands of the steppe and humans.