The challenges of the 14th human-led migration
Newsletter 25/08/2021
This year's migration is characterised by a number of peculiarities. First and foremost, the 28 young Northern Bald Ibises. Our pilot Walter Holzmüller said after a training flight that these birds were almost scary to him, because they follow with such high confidence and especially because they can be guided to any altitude.
Another special feature is the ongoing media production. A team of eight people is accompanying us during the migration and on two flight stages a helicopter was also used for the filming. This is the largest media team we ever had in the context of the project. Of course, the filming represents an extra effort for our people. But the media team acts extremely professionally and respectfully and thus does not affect the realisation of the project in any way.
Less pleasing is the COVID pandemic, which is of course also one of the "special features" of the season. But this topic takes already up too much space and I don't want to expand on it here. Only this: The Waldrappteam and the film team are trying very hard to minimise the risk of infection, and therefore all participants are vaccinated and test themselves regularly.
And finally, there is the weather, which is of course always an issue and a challenge for a project like this. This year, however, there was a complete lack of stable, sustained high pressure periods during the training, which also led to an increase in deviations in the weather forecasts. And this situation is now continuing during the migration, so it is a special challenge to make flight plans over distances of more than 100 km.
So now, due to persistent north winds and rain cells towards the south, we are stuck for the fourth day at the airfield in Neustift near Brixen. Day after day we hope for suitable conditions and then have to cancel our flights at short notice. Today we were also full of optimism, as the weather models had forecast a decrease of the north wind. But in fact the wind bags were horizontal. Shortly before the planned take-off, Walter Holzmüller made a test flight and came into turbulent winds of up to 50 kmh just above the airfield, which caused him to make a quick landing. These are definitely not conditions for a migration flight.
But we remain optimistic because the forecast for tomorrow is again favourable. After all, we already have two great stages behind us. The first flight took us past Untersberg, Watzmann and Wilder Kaiser to Radfeld in the Lower Inn Valley. And on the second flight we crossed the Zillertal in record time and flew over the Pfitscher Joch at up to 2,850 metres above sea level.
Photo: Flying high above the Zillertal. This year the birds showed a well-ordered formation from the very first flight stage. Photo Katharina Huchler.
