Count Down for the human-led migration
Newsletter 15/08/2021
On August 12th and 13th, the team for the migration was completed and it consists of 13 people. In addition, an English-Canadian film team of 8 people arrived in the last few days and will accompany us throughout the migration. This is probably the largest team in a human-led migration so far.
The expectations of both our team and the film crew are high. But we are all optimistic, because the 28 Northern Bald Ibises are very well trained and just as highly motivated as their foster parents, the pilots and the whole team.
Yesterday, the training was held with two identical aircrafts for the first time. At first the birds seemed to be a bit irritated, but than they got on very well with it. Flying with the two aircrafts makes the birds trajectory much more stable and their flight calmer, because they tend to stay between the two aircrafts. With only one flying device, they often oscillate between the left and right side, which requires the permanent attention of the foster mothers and the pilot to avoid collisions as much as possible. Unfortunately, this cannot be completely avoided. Also this season we lost one bird due to a collision with the aircraft. In the meantime, however, the group is very well trained and the risk of a collision is minimised.
Last Friday, August 13th, we had to deal with a different danger during training flight. Contrary to the weather forecast, two thunderstorm cells formed very quickly in the morning in our immediate vicinity. We had to land 15 km away from the camp on a meadow and let the thunderstorm front pass over us. Fortunately, the front only touched us and after 1.5 hours we could continue the flight unharmed.
During the second part of this training flight, the helicopter of the filmcrew joined us. The birds need to get used to the presence of the helicopter, as it will follow us on the first three migration steps. As in previous years, the birds showed little shyness towards the helicopter as it slowly approached up to 150 metres.
The migration is scheduled to begin on August 17th, with a flight to Radfeld in the Inn Valley. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts for the coming week are not very favourable. But currently we are sticking to this schedule.
As we have to close our camp to visitors due to the risk of another COVID infection, we can at least offer digital opportunities for friends of the project to follow and observe us. On our Facebook pages in three languages ((Waldrappteam, Bentornato Ibis und Return of the Northern Bald Ibis) we will post a live track for each training or migration flight. Afterwards you will find pictures and data of the respective flight.
Photo: Training flight in the Salzkammergut with the two aircraft. Photo Luka Gaspar.
