looduskalender.ee

From 20th of November there are transmissions after every 10 days or even after two weeks, so not easy to say at the moment the last positions... But in overall the BSs are moving southward of their first stopping places - probably there are trying the waterbodies.

From the both juveniles we miss last transmissions, other storks seem to feel well. Pirsu occupied new country for Estonian BSs - Cameroon, ie some 140 km of Finnish Osprey Jukka.

Thanks for the update Urmas!
fingers crossed, that the youngsters are OK too!
well done Pirsu

thank you for the update, Urmas. I hope the young BS are alright.

Happy New 2010 Year , our dear Black Storks!
Have a safe homecoming!
....it is just some three months to wait...


Padis on April, 22 2009

Storks and their fans, Happy New Year! Quiet sleek travel in the new year

Thank you Urmas very much for the news. Me too would like to put here one picture of a Black stork, as a hint what we all are waiting for, tireless!

Aaahh!
Magnificent.
Thank you, Olga.

What a beautiful BS picture, Olga. Thank you for posting!

Urmas, thank you for the news. We can only hope the very best for their return!

Is there any new info on tagged storks? How are they?

there is an article about our storks in Päevaleht newspaper:
http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/487438

Hope somebody could make translation for forum...

Hello from "somebody" , Urmas!
Here we go, then. Sorry, no time to fix the texts into the illustrating map (there is one in the original article)

Our black storks have taken over the whole of Central Africa for winter quarters
Surprise: the transmitter-monitored black storks haven’t flown to the same area in Africa.
Author: Ulvar Käärt 05. veebruar 2010 08:00
Eesti Päevaleht, EPL http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/487438

When the scientists recently brought the wintering places of all our black storks with satellite transmitters together on one map, they were amazed when it turned out that the rare birds had managed to spread over the whole of Central Africa.
Urmas Sellis, member of Eagle Club and keeping an eye on the storks’ movements, says that if our first GPS-tracked storks Jaak and Tooni spent the winter in Ethiopia quite near each other, then the new map shows that the storks seem to keep apart from each other in the wintering areas..
Part of strategy
„This is probably a part of the survival strategy of the species: if extreme conditions, for instance drought, may kill the birds in one area, then in another area conditions can be better and the storks there survive”, Urmas Sellis explained.
Of our black storks, Oss from Raplamaa has been the laziest migrant: he hasn’t moved from the fishponds in the Jordan river valley in Israel. There too Raivo from Lääne-Virumaa gorged himself for a while, but he decided to move his wings around Christmas and went headlong 4000 kilometres further away, to the southernmost part of Kenya.

The texts in the illustrating map (see newspaper EPL article)
Ten black storks with GPS transmitters
The wintering black storks in Africa: some stay in place, some roam around.
The greatest surprise was Pirsu, caught in Läänemaa to get his transmitter but nesting in Harjumaa. He went to Cameroun for the winter.
Usually the black storks from Western Europe who head there cross by way of the Gibraltar strait, but Pirsu instead decided to go there from Israel.

Some weeks ago Raivo too went on a many hundred kilometers long exploration trip to the foot of Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro. But he soon returned from there to the mangrove forests of the Indian Ocean coast of Africa.

Thinly spread over Africa and Israel, the ten monitored storks spend their winter all in their own ways – some keep to one area, others move around all the time. Valdur from Võrumaa for instance moves only a few kilometres along his favoured stretch of river. Leida from Soomaa, again, who at first landed at the middle reach of the Nile, has flown on to Sudan, and from there on to Ethiopia

thank you Urmas and Liis!
ice to see where our BS are and it is good that they surprise you

Thank you, Liis!
The surprize is written by journalist, for us that is not so surprize already...

I have joined you just to rejoice that,so far the Black Storks are doing soooo well.
That is great news.!! and we are learning some new info.
( am visiting in another country but got to the computer nearly every day to see the news. Should be home tomorrow p.m. and then...)

Dear Black stork friends. Here you can see some photographs of Estonian GPS-tracked Black storks in Israel, in last December. All pictures are photographed by Carsten Rohde.

viewtopic.php?p=60372#p60372

Breaking News
our Black Storks and Osprey Erika have started their long way back home!!!!!!!!
First was osprey Erika who on March 2nd, turned her beak towards home, then (March 5th) Pirsu felt that it`s time....also Oss, Valdur and Priidu are moving back North
Probably many BS sense that spring is far from Estonia yet, so they haven`t started their journey....like Raivo,
who is still in Kenya.
Urmas expects them reach home in the middle of April!
Article from Eesti Päevaleht http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/493478

Liis, please can you help and translate the article!

Kuremari, many thanks for the news that we have been waiting for,
Middle of April? I wonder how they know that?
How do they get weather reports about Estonia?

There is so much we don't know, yet.

Thank you for the Breaking news!

http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/493478

I am longing to see a Black Stork on our webcam again.

Godspeed to all the Travelers.

Oss has a chance to become the winner of this year too!