looduskalender.ee

 

The bird migration map has just started its spring season and found its first migrant – black stork Pirsu:

 A photo taken at the autumn migration last year in the Near East with close and more distant relatives

 

On February 23rd black stork Pirsu started his spring journey from Cameroon – evidently he wants to be in place on the nesting site before his mate.

Pirsu and his mate last spring in their substantial nest in Harjumaa

 

A piece of good news from the migration map is that spotted eagle Luule (who disappeared from view in early  December) again sends us some information but for some reason there is not enough power to record the exact GPS positions. The less precise Argos locations point to her staying on the east coast of Sicily. Possibly Luule does not fly around very much and on perching in a tree the wing feathers cover the transmitter’s solar panels (see the photo of Pirsu on his nest).
Black stork Leida moved already in early February from the banks of the Nile 500 km towards east, to Ethiopia – about the same manoeuvre that she made two years ago. But it can’t yet be counted as spring migration.
Since the winterers mostly are farther southwards than usual it is a fair assumption that it is drier than in an average year behind Sahara. The widening of Sahara is much discussed and our migrant birds must fly increasingly farther away for wintering ...