I love a trip that give me a good sentence.

I was editing some photos and enjoying a drink in the outdoor cafe of my hotel in Budapest when a fox wandered in, looked at us and then went about its night.

And that is one of my favorite memories of a trip to Hungary a few years ago, I love the random and unexpected. I loved that fox on that trip. Well, that fox and the very distance ural owl we saw at Bukk. Some of the best stuff was right around our hotel in Budapest in late May. I’d never planned on going to Hungary in my life, but when life hands you an opportunity, you take it. It was a wonderful trip.

Since spring was heading into summer, blooming poppies were still abundant.

I spent a few days in this cozy hotel near the airport called Sarokhaz Panzio.

Red and white are popular themes in Hungary. This is the sort of thing I love to see and live in on the road and when I try to bring it into my home it makes my place look like an interior designer’s nightmare.

The great thing about birding is that it can be done pretty much where ever you are. I share this hotel with my buddy Clay Taylor from Swarovski and Jessie Barry from Cornell. This was one of my first opportunities to bird with her and she was hell bent on recording sounds of birds to at to the Macaulay Library. She has the enviable ability to hear a bird song once and have it down. I need to hear a song several times and in habitat context to get it down. Case in point, one of the few birds I know well by song in Europe is the crested lark. I was relieved to be able to id that one on my own.

The three of us basically walked the neighborhood around our hotel and to a nearby abandoned (or so I thought field loaded with poppies and larks. As Jessie grabbed recordings and I tried to give her space so as to not mess it up, a man started yelling at us in Hungarian. None of us spoke the language well and he didn’t speak English.

“Parlez-vous français,” I asked.

He shook his head now and asked, “Deutsch?”

Not really, well enough to get me slapped and find a bathroom. But between his German and my French we figured out the issue. We were near a construction site and trucks would be hauling. They didn’t want people wandering around. We showed him pictures from my camera to show we seriously were “vögel beobachten” and he told us we had a little more time before we really had to leave.

European goldfinch that sang over us at the cafe in our hotel.

There were many green finches in our neighborhood.

Clay going for images of crested lark singing on one the trucks we were warned about.

The crested lark Clay was watching. I took the video with my iPhone 7, PhoneSkope case and Swarovski ATX 65 mm scope.

Lesser whitethroat. Jessie was working overtime to get songs for the Macaulay Library.

Delicious soup and some pepper spread for fresh bread at the cafe at our hotel. Delicious!

Jessie and I did take time to wander around downtown Budapest and see the bridge. We climbed the hill overlooking the city to see the statues. My one regret in Hungary is that we did not visit the Columbo statue in Budapest, but we saw several others. It’s a beautiful city in the spring with poppies and birds.

Because of course I would go to Budapest and buy these as souvenirs…

I love this shot of the full moon visible from our flight to Europe.

My journey to Kazakhstan started with a trip to Frankfurt. My flights worked out to go from the Twin Cities, to Detroit, to Frankfurt and then on to Kazakhstan. Originally, I was supposed to do this all in one day, but for whatever reason, it saved $1000 for me to arrive a day ahead, spend the night in Frankfurt and fly to Kazakhstan the following day--which I'm really glad happened that way. It gave me a chance to catch up with the time change...and finally do a bit of European birding. This was my first time across the Atlantic.

I was able to walk around the hotel and all the birds were new like the above chaffinch. I also looked forward to experiencing some of the iconic birds of Europe like the nightingale which I did not see, but only heard. This was fine with me, the song of the nightingale is written about so often, I'm not sure I would have counted it if I did not hear it (even if I saw it). Here's a sample of the nightingale song.

Some birds were just down right confusing to my little American brain. Above is a blackbird--as a matter of fact, this is the very blackbird referenced in the Beatles song, Blackbird Singing In The Dead Of Night...which this bird did do...right outside my hotel room window. However, if you look at the shape of this bird, it resembles an American robin, not something like a red-winged blackbird. Check out the bill on this bird.

Robins that I see are in the genus Turdus, their scientific name is Turdus migratorius. Well, the blackbird above has the scientific name Turdus merula--they are in the same genus as North American robins. European blackbirds are not the same as North American blackbirds, they are like our robins.

It gets more confusing!

Here is what a European robin looks like. It's not shaped like a Turdus at all (did I actually type that last sentence, yes I did). The European robin's scientific name is Erithacus rubecula, it's not in the same genus as North American robins, about all they have in common are featers, an orange breast and a love of insects for breakfast.

Anyway, here is another exciting (at least to me) Turdus that I got to see--a fieldfare. My only regret is that when I was finally able to get my hands on my digiscoping equipment, it was softly raining and the light was terrible. But I had a great time watching something shaped like the robin I'm used to, but colored in a different way.

This is a green finch. After hearing the nightingale, seeing the blackbird, and then seeing this bird I thought, "All I need now is a linnet and I have a song from Sweeney Todd." I didn't get one around the Frankfurt hotel, but did later in Kazakhstan. Score!

Here were some European goldfinches. This was interesting, because I periodically see these sold in pet stores in North America. It strikes me as odd that it's illegal to own North American birds as pets, but European birds are ok. Actually, according to this website, you can get some of the birds in this post (like the chaffinch and green finch) and some of the birds I saw in Kazakhstan as pets. Whoa, I just did some digging on their price list and found that one of their South American species for sale is a "yellow hood blackbird" which looks remarkably like a yellow-headed blackbird...that's not legal. And as much as I love those birds, I would not want them singing in my home on a regular basis.

Another fun bird to see what a white wagtails. I ended up seeing several different versions of this bird throughout my travels and each one is very striking. I'm sure it's a common bird, but it's a striking one to see.

That is a sampling of the birds that jump started my Kazakhstan journey. After an afternoon of birds, I met up with some of our other travelling companions, had a meal and got a good night's sleep before board a plane for parts unknown.