Hortobagy Puszta Plain

About this spectacle

The Hortobagy Puszta is Hungary's vast steppe plain, a UNESCO-listed national park where the open horizon seems to stretch without limit. Each autumn, hundreds of thousands of common cranes descend on the shallow fishponds and wetlands in one of Europe's most dramatic bird migration spectacles. Visitors stand on flat grassland as wave after wave of cranes spiral overhead in noisy, restless flocks, their bugling calls filling the cold air. At dusk the sky turns dark with birds funnelling down to roost. Beside the cranes, white-tailed eagles patrol low over the reed beds, while flocks of starlings murmur in tight formations. The landscape itself is elemental — treeless, wind-swept, and almost entirely flat — giving an unobstructed 360-degree view of the sky and the spectacle unfolding within it.

When to go

Mar — Nov, peak Oct — Nov

Getting there

Nearest airport: DEB. Nearest city: Debrecen.

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