Lake Tisza.(travel information)

The Tisza River shimmers in the sun as it enters its huge reservoir. It seems alive, brushed into movement by the wind, slapping the shore with its fingers, lined by reed forests where hundreds of birds nest. Hundreds of cormorants and eagles perch atop branches rising out of the water in the vast expanse of the shallow lake, appearing as specks, watching boaters approach and then pass by. It is a primeval forest close enough to touch and experience, a water wonderland.

Yet, though naturally beautiful, the Tisza is artificially created. It is probably the first dam control system in the world (1970) to deliberately integrate a self-sustaining environmental area. The water is cleaned by millions of plants as it runs its course. It has resulted in the return of many once-disappearing species and has spawned a natural habitat for hundreds of different animals and birds, as well as 50 different kinds of fish. Integrated into the Hortobagy National Park (see The Great Plains chapter), it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its 49 square miles make up the second-largest lake in Hungary. Yet, the shallows warm up quickly and draw hundreds of bathers to the silky warm water at the public beaches. Some deeper areas are set aside for watersports, jet skis, and motorboats. Protected areas are marked with safe passages for boaters, canoeists, and kayakers, who are catered to by shoreline shops, hotels and restaurants.

Sightseers can explore the largest yellow floating heart and the largest floating chestnut fields in Europe, mist-laden shorelines, inlets and quays filled with nesting birds, vine-covered forests, and miles of reeds, brushed into waves by the wind. Between the two dams there are 16 islands and 10 water channels, a paradise for nesting birds, especially concentrated in the reeds of the Tiszavalk Pool. Of the 380 native bird species in Hungary, 200 nest here.

BIRD SONGS

When you hear a bird sing in the early morning, or listen as it says goodbye to the evening sun, it is actually putting together an astonishing complex of sounds. The sedge warbler, for instance, creates his call from 50 different sounds. But the absolute king of "warbling" is the marsh warbler, left. He listens to other birds, and then duplicates the calls of 40 different species. Just imagine the number of sounds he has mastered. If each species averaged 50 sounds, as with the sedge warbler, the marsh warbler would have mastered 2,000 different sounds!

And, then there are the thousands of migrating birds--the summer goose, lanner, the great winged bustard, largest of the birds in Europe, and the great herons, spreading their wide wings to land on their long thin legs in gigantic nests of moss, branches, reeds and grass. Making their homes here in the spring and autumn, tens of thousands of birds in a flock can rise at once to create a fantastic skyscape that rivals some of the great nesting areas of the tropics. As a result, the area has attracted birders from every part of the world, and it alone is a major aspect of the tourism of the area. The higher banks of the "living Tisza," the flowing natural course, as opposed to the dead backwaters and oxbows, are carpeted with a rich forest harking back to ancient times. Domestic poplar, wisteria, and wild grapes appear in dense patches. In fact, since the Tisza reservoir system was created, the habitats of the different forest patches are developing at an astonishing pace, untouched and often impassable! Willow beds are on the inner islands, white fen-land meadow types are interspersed between duckweed and, sometimes, huge expanses of water lilies.

The Tisza dead channels or oxbows add miles of swamp on the fringe of the main course. Although some of these were formed naturally, most were caused when the dam system cut them off from the direct flow of the river. They are cluttered with reeds and riverbank forests, a natural home for the black kite, the black stork, and the white-tailed eagle. The undisturbed and inaccessible channels harbor water plantain, marsh iris, and willow bushes, which hide the nests of the rarely seen whiskered tern and the water rail.