Promising start to the season
Newsletter 23/05/2017
On the 21st of May, three young birds arrived in their breeding colony in Kuchl near Salzburg, a highlight of the season 2017. Although the three young birds are not yet sexually mature, they made their way to the north in April.
The inexperienced birds weren´t able to cross the Alps for weeks because of the bad weather. But finally they managed to get to Kuchl. Remarkably, these three birds never have seen Kuchl before in their life, because they grew up around 30 km further north in Seekirchen. We repeatedly observe that the birds meet during their migration journey over long distances, but how they do this remains a secret so far.
The start of the season 2017 has been exceptionally good. Until now, 13 birds arrived in the two breeding areas, and at least another 8 birds are on the way. Currently eight pairs are breeding. Those pairs are composed of wild, migratory birds and experienced breeding birds, which are released in the breeding areas just for the breeding season. We expect about 30 wild offspring for 2017.
In addition, 31 young birds are raised by the foster mothers Corinna and Anne. They initially raised the chicks at Zoo Rosegg in Carinthia. Just recently they moved to the new training camp in Überlingen at Lake Constance. In the meantime, the first young birds have fledged. During the next two months, these birds will be trained to follow a microlight airplane.
If all goes well, we will have a record number of around 60 young Northern Bald Ibises for the season 2017!
Picture (D. Trobe): Breeding NBIs in Kuchl.
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