Our satellite-tracked crane Tom arrived in Egypt
Text: Aivar Leito
Translation: Liis
Tom in foreground, with transmitter.
“Teele, teele kurekesed üle metsa maa … Teele, teele kurekesed kus Egiptimaa” – “Go, go dear cranes, over forests, over land. ... Go, go dear cranes, to Egypt’s land”*. So says the song, created by Friedrich Kuhlbars, that has almost become a folk song. We have taken for granted that our cranes migrate to Egypt for wintering. But it hasn’t been proved until this November 10, when the young crane, who was equipped with a satellite transmitter in Lootvina in Põlvamaa this summer, for the first time actually arrived in Egypt. As a matter of fact the larger part of the cranes who nest in Estonia spend the winter in Spain. A smaller number migrate to Hungary and North Africa, and only a few go by way of the Ukraine and Turkey to the Near East, and from there as far as to Ethiopia. Even though the wintering of cranes in Egypt and Ethiopia has been known for a long time, no ringed crane has been found there earlier, or the origins of the birds haven’t been known. Now it has been proved that at least some of the cranes wintering there come from Estonia. The greater part of them however seem to come from the Russian plains. Regrettably few cranes are ringed there, and ringed cranes have not been observed in Egypt or in Ethiopia.
*Estonian children's choir singing “Teele, teele …” http://www.estmusic.com/index.php?01321941305183209 (scroll down to no.15)
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